2024-01-17 10:59:37
Last weekend, Senegal inaugurated with great fanfare a network of 100% electric buses which will run in a few weeks on a reserved route between Dakar and one of the suburbs of the capital. The promise: halve travel times, reduce air pollution and reduce emissions responsible for climate change. In a warming world, the issue of transport will be crucial to making African cities more sustainable.
The transport sector is already responsible for a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. This is the sector whose contribution to global warming is increasing most rapidly, particularly in Africa. And demographic projections indicate that the issue of mobility will be even more significant in the continent’s large cities in the decades to come.
Urbanization is indeed galloping there. By 2030, 50% of the African population will live in cities. By 2050, this will be more than 60%. This means that transport needs will be exponential even though many African cities are already sprawling, very congested, with little public transport and very polluted. However, if we want to fight against the effects of climate change which are hitting the continent hard – droughts and deadly floods for example – we will have to encourage citizens to avoid thermal vehicles because they are a mode of transport which emits a lot of greenhouse gases.
Switch directly to clean transport
Not easy when the car is seen as a symbol of social and economic success. The continent has an advantage: its population is not yet addicted to the car, unlike many Westerners. 80% of African urban dwellers do not own a motor vehicle. Some African cities could therefore move directly from lack of infrastructure to clean public transport. Without going through the oil box.
Read alsoAfrican capitals want to go electric
« On this subject, I would like to paraphrase what a former mayor of Bogota said : a developed country is not a country where the poor have a private car, it is a country where the rich use public transportreacts to RFI microphone, Mohamed Mezghani, secretary general of the International Union of Public Transport. This is the goal we must have for our cities. If we want our cities to develop sustainably, it is important that they do not develop around private cars. »
The benefits are multiple: fewer thermal cars and more clean public transport such as electric buses, the metro or the train, we breathe cleaner air and therefore better health. It is also more safety, especially for pedestrians. Today, 650 people die every day from road accidents in Africa.
Some cities have already started the movement. Dar-es-Salaam and Johannesburg have developed a bus network with reserved lanes, Casablanca a tramway, Abidjan and Lagos are building a metro, to name just a few examples. But there are still many obstacles: the absence of authorities responsible for public transport in many cities, the need for training, corruption and even the lack of long-term planning.
Also readRoads in Africa: an obstacle to development?
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