Blog - August 2010
An interesting article in The New Yorker describes Moscow’s worsening traffic in a city on the brink of transportational collapse. A strong desire for car ownership has led to rapid growth, from 60 cars per thousand residents in 1991 rising to 350 in 2009. The first post-Soviet fortune was made not from oil or gas or nickel but from selling cars. The long serving City Mayor is cool towards the famous but sparse metro network and hostile to trams - public transport is for losers. He believes in the market rather than planning, is willing to fund ring road construction, with traffic management by eliminating traffic lights and conversion of streets to one-way, and no parking controls or paid parking. But congestion prevails, exacerbated by pushy driver behaviour and emergency-vehicle type privileges for the elite.
There is a real time street map of the city showing traffic conditions provided by Yandex, an internet provider, with half a million daily visitors. Inputs derive from volunteer drivers with GPS-enabled smartphones.
Two clear lessons: first, the importance of good public transport for a densely populated metropolis. Second, the potential for crowd-sourced traffic information.
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