Making the Essential Visible to the Eye

Two years ago when I arrived in David (Panama) to develop a Comprehensive Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (PIMUS) in the city, I heard that “the lack of new roads is the biggest transport problem in this city.” Today I can say that this is not the main problem. During the past year, the PIMUS study was developed with the help of an international consulting firm, thanks to a European Union grant channeled by CAF and KfW. David is today the second city in the country—after the capital—with a PIMUS. To develop the program, the international firm put together a multidisciplinary team of national and foreign experts.

The PIMUS had two major objectives:

1. To make an unprecedented diagnosis of mobility in David and its peripheral urban areas
2. To develop proposals to face the challenges.

The PIMUS required a citizen participation strategy, as well as to overcome various challenges, such as limited pre-existing information, and having the majority of transport competences concentrated in the capital city.

The diagnosis provided us with an overview of public, private, taxi, bicycle, walking or cargo transport, as well as a review of regulatory and institutional issues. We also conducted a household mobility survey, which gave us critical information. We now know that in the surveyed area (see Figure) the 206,858 inhabitants make 343,640 trips every day. 15% of these trips are made entirely on foot, 43% in cars, as a driver or passenger, 11% by individual or collective taxis, 24% in collective public transport and 2% by bicycle.

We also identified that the motorization rate is 177 vehicles per 1000 people (but in high-income families this figure exceeds 400), that there are few activities and trips after 7:00 pm, that the average trip time is 30 minutes, that the Pan American Road that crosses the city has the largest volume of traffic, and that mobility sources emit approximately 400,000 tons of CO2eq a year.

The information resulting from the diagnosis helped us identify five challenges:

1. Inequality in access to transport. Not all socioeconomic groups have the same commuting facilities. We identified the reluctance of some public transport operators to transport indigenous people and students. We saw how some children at the end of their school day, in the absence of bus stops, prefer to wait for public transport at gas stations. We found that 98% of bicycle trips are made by men, that only 25% of women have a driver’s license (compared to 45% of men) and that 69% of people with some sort of physical limitation say they find it hard to move around in the city.
   
   
2. Precarious road safety conditions. There are no accurate figures on road accidents or incidents. According to the mobility survey, an estimated 2% of residents have been involved in some type of road accident or incident. There are places with conflicts between vehicular flows, such as the Pan American Road, that warrant urgent attention.
   
   
3. Deficient public spaces. Although 15% of trips are made on foot and all public transport trips involve some walking, pedestrian infrastructure is precarious or non-existent in some places. Due to the lack of spaces for public leisure in the city, the airport has become the most popular spot for recreation. Some 70% of people who go to the airport do so for recreational purposes, not to travel, pick up or drop someone off.
   
   
4. Public transport with inadequate infrastructure. There are areas of the city without public collective transport coverage. The average age of the fleet of buses and taxis is over 15 years; user information is non-existent, there are few bus stops (and the existing stops are in bad shape), and there is taxi oversupply in the city center.
   
   
5. Limited road network connectivity. The city center has an adequate grid road network. This type of network allows for different possible routes to go from A to B. But in areas outside the city center, and in new developments, the road layout is not adequate, with little connectivity between roads. In this type of layout, there are several collector roads that lead to few arterial roads, which will likely produce bottlenecks in the future.

Based on challenges identified, a 20-year vision (with four general objectives) was agreed with the national government counterparts (through ATTT, MIVIOT and MOP), the David Municipality and the organized Civil Society of Chiriquí, especially with the support of CECOMRO, which played a key role in the drafting of the plan. To meet the objectives, a plan was developed with nine programs covering issues such as road safety, public transport, walking and cycling transport and road infrastructure. For example, road projects include road safety issues, and the promotion of pedestrian mobility includes recommendations for improving public spaces. As cross-cutting themes, a citizen monitoring strategy and an institutional and sectoral articulation plan were devised.

Now comes the most important part: Implementing the Plan. At CAF, we are working on channeling funds for the preparation of projects proposed in the PIMUS. We will also develop a pilot urban acupuncture exercise in David to demonstrate how low-cost actions can have tremendous effects on mobility.

To conclude, I would like to thank all the people who contributed to the development of PIMUS. We hope this effort will help transform David into a city recognized nationwide for its attractive, efficient, inclusive, safe and environmentally friendly mobility system, and a role model for mid-sized cities in Latin America.