by John Koscelny

Created on: October 30, 2008

To get your city to adopt alternative transportation options we can look at what some the biggest cities around the world have done to curb traffic. These cities are Gothenburg, Sweden, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Rome, and Florence. While these cities may not imitate cities in the United States perhaps we could look at what these cities have done and adopt some of these policies. Not only will the systems used by these cities help with conserving energy but help with congestion, pollution, and parking problems.

In Gothenburg, Sweden pedestrian traffic is encouraged. The business district of the city is divided into zones and cars are prohibited in the zones. A major road surrounds the business district and cars can only move around this major road around the city. Then people walk into the business district. This keeps traffic out of the business district keeping pollution down and parking problems to a minimum.

In Singapore they have a simple system of using money as a prohibitive against traffic. It cost around $30 per month for a car to go downtown during rush hour. They must display a sticker. Although if the car has four or more passengers they pass free to encourage car pooling into downtown. A very simple but effective system.

In Hong Kong, electronic sensors monitor were cars are going and hours they are traveling. Much like our electronic toll passes used in the United States. Hong Kong travelors are charged according to the location, time and places traveled and sent a monthly statement.

In Tokyo, when buying a vehicle you must show evidence of a permanent parking space is available for the car. Some people have used lifts to park more than one car in the same space. While space is the problem in Tokyo it does control the number of cars in a certain area. Perhaps this could be used in some of our bigger cities and help solve some of our parking problems, and eliminate the need for parking police and the fuel that they use.

In Rome and Florence they have a simple plan of limiting traffic to just buses, taxis, and delivery vehicles. People living in the area can also park in this area. This plan is put into effect from 7:30 am to 7:30 pm. This plan could be really effective again in some of the downtown areas across the United States.

While some or none of these systems could work in the United States it does give some ideas on what could be done to help cities adopt alternative transportation options. Perhaps busing could be used on some of the outlying areas into downtown areas in some the major cities in the United States and thus eliminate traffic, the need for more and bigger roads and hopefully reduce the use of fuel.

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