The rationalization of transport

Creating car parks in cities is a huge mistake. Life for cars in cities needs to be made more difficult, so that there is a natural shift away from personal vehicles in favour of public transport, which should be economically sustainable and have highly positive environmental effects, particularly on air quality in cities, noise and stress.

No one is willing to wait 20 minutes for public transport if they have their own vehicle (even if it takes longer, because our brain “evaluates” both situations poorly, i.e. it happily accepts waiting 30 minutes in a queue in the car, but cannot stand waiting 20 minutes for a bus, and worse if it is completely full).

On the other hand, we know that no one would travel around Lisbon or Porto by car if, coming from outside, there is a compatible train, and in the city there is public transport every 10 minutes at most, they have to walk a maximum of 800 meters to their destination on foot, and if the distance is longer, they have a shared 2 or 4-wheel vehicle at their disposal.

The existence of intermodal platforms between trains, metro, buses, bicycles, scooters, taxis, Ubers, Cabify, etc. is the right solution, in fact it is the only solution with a future.

When we achieve this, we will have mobility problems resolved, the environmental problems of cities greatly reduced, cities where it is worth living and where movement will be an intuitive and “natural” thing.

The big issue regarding the difficulty in transferring users from individual to public transport has two components. One is factual, i.e. public transport is not of good quality, does not have compatible timetables and does not reach everywhere. The second, and more difficult to resolve, is the psychological issue, i.e., we believe that we have more freedom if we go in our own vehicle, through which we can come and go as we please.

This “psychological” problem can only be solved if cars are effectively and simultaneously prevented from driving in certain areas of cities, if parking is heavily taxed and the maximum parking period is limited, and if there is a continuous supply of quality public transport.

Amsterdam has several car parks at the entrances to the city for one euro/day, so that vehicles can be left there, and it also offers free transportation to the central train station in the city center, “Amsterdam Central”.

So, who wants to take their car into a city that charges 2 Euros/hour at parking meters?

Very few. And so, in these types of cities, the need for a car is not felt; in fact, the opposite is felt: the embarrassment of having one, the difficulty of parking one and the cost of maintaining one.

And if when we go there we feel free and happy, and it has nothing to do with the fact that we are on vacation, because this happens even at work, it means that it is a model that, if implemented in our cities, could gain acceptance. So why not?

A “hereditary” issue

In fact, many of us have an “inherited” aversion to public transport, which was a disaster when we were children. When I came to university in 1988, the buses that connected Viseu to Aveiro and Porto leaked, some windows didn’t close, the roads were terrible, there was no air conditioning in the summer and the vehicles often broke down on the way. This obviously leaves its mark that is hard to overcome. It also didn’t help that those who travelled from Porto to Paris on the CP Sud Express at that time, with a 27-hour journey, with no passenger control, half of them lying on the floor, some sitting, others under the seats and some sitting on the toilet.

The older generation does not forget what the 80s and 90s were like, and needs to be motivated to experiment, and above all have good experiences, of comfort, predictability of departure and arrival, ease of understanding the model, of purchasing tickets, but above all they need to have timetables compatible with their needs, which leads to trust in the system.

A mobility tax

I wouldn't be at all shocked, in fact I would even support, a municipal system that included a mobility tax, where everyone would pay a mobility fee in their municipal taxes in order to be able to use public transport for free. People who live in areas where the network doesn't reach would obviously be exempt from this payment. In this way, the network would become increasingly perfect and comprehensive and would attract more users.

Many will say, in opposition, that it would not be fair because they do not use it. Well, this is the principle of the Social State, we pay for each other, as happens with health, where I will have to consider myself privileged and blessed if I have spent a lifetime paying for it without having used it.

The same goes for roads, airports, and everything that is essential to the country: everyone pays for it, whether they use it or not. That's the way it is, and that's a good thing, otherwise we would have an extremely unequal and inhumane society.

The advantage of mobility being considered a right, to be provided by the State or local authorities, would imply a new paradigm in investments and in the way we would move.

And it is so easy to implement, because if we have the sui generis case of the many motorways that we all pay for and few use, the need for which was and is impossible to explain, an urban system paid for by everyone and at the service of everyone, where those who can afford it pay the most, would be an impeccable system and guaranteed to be successful. Even more so because the Portuguese have a habit, good or bad, that can be translated as “I will use everything I am entitled to”, from the food that is not left on the plate in the restaurant, even if I don’t feel like it, because it has been paid for, to the soaps and shampoos in hotels, the blankets on airplanes, the magazines and newspapers… everything comes. Therefore, a network like this would serve the purposes of mobility and the purposes of the environment.

Cities should be pleasant, smooth, fluid, safe and friendly places to be enjoyed by everyone.

Emissions and Community targets

We have no way of achieving this if we do not follow a path similar to the one I advocate, especially because the European Commission has set targets for emission ceilings, to be met from 2020 to 2029 and more strongly from 2030 onwards, which require drastically reducing pollution levels in each Member State. And these targets are only possible with far fewer cars on the road, since the estimated penetration rate of electric vehicles will be very low at that time and even electric vehicles, in their production, have implicit emissions, but they are not felt in the place where they are driven. They also have an additional problem: they take up the same space as a non-electric vehicle, so in terms of mobility they have no advantage over four-wheeled vehicles.

So, to conclude, we have a challenge that we cannot escape: cities cannot withstand such pressure from vehicles and pollutants because cities are people and living beings.

The existence of air quality and noise sensor networks with strong spatial representation, with results framed by the Community directive 2005/50/EC (of which QART, Air Quality, Noise and Traffic, is the only Portuguese candidate capable of demonstrating compliance with the uncertainties of the directive as an indicative method) will be a fundamental tool for providing local residents with a perception of the air quality in their area of ​​movement, and how the transfer of mobility modes from “individual” to “shared” or “public” will change Air Quality, which will improve at a surprising speed.

Travel times will be drastically reduced and leisure time will be extended.

If anyone can give me an argument for not doing what is simple, sensible, quick and necessary, I will offer a prize.

Carlos Pedro Ferreira

Written in 2018 but current as of 2025.04.05