What Sub-Saharan Africa Can Teach San Francisco

[urbanlibertarian]

Mass transit doesn’t have to mean massive government spending.

G. Pascal Zachary

In the provincial capital of Mbale, in eastern Uganda, it’s not uncommon to start your morning commute riding shotgun on a bicycle. I visited this metropolis of more than 400,000 people frequently in the late 2000s, and I often began my day as a passenger in the tacked-on second seat of one of these bodas, wheeling from my hotel to a place on the other edge of town where shared taxis congregated. Three other travelers and I would pile into one of these taxis for a 20-minute ride down a main road, and then I would hop out and hail another boda for the final mile of my journey.

Once overwhelmingly rural, Africa is urbanizing at a faster rate than any other region on the planet. With the world’s lowest rates of automobile ownership, urban Africans also have the world’s greatest demand for mass transit. And they are meeting their own needs with enterprise and creativity, largely fueled by private resources. The successes of the continent’s ad hoc urban transit systems are partly due to government neglect. Unable to keep pace with growth, governments are simply staying out of the way and letting private operators assemble inexpensive networks of buses and taxis that can adapt quickly to shifting consumer needs.

Whole article here:

http://reason.com/archives/2011/05/17/what-sub-saharan-africa-can-te