Here’s a video that’s going around: It Started with a Road… by Shreya Gadepalli of the Urban Works Institute.
The video tells a story in the form of a parable. It’s a story familiar to many people who advocate for sustainable mobility, and who understand the pitfalls of developing roads to accommodate cars.
But the story doesn’t go exactly like that in the global South. Yes, many cities in the global South are clogged with cars, and are polluted with carbon emissions, and have a rapidly growing population that requires mobility solutions. But an important difference is that – relative to the rich industrialized countries of the global North – very few people in the global South actually own cars. In some countries, private car ownership is as low as 3 percent. And therefore, car-dependency doesn’t have quite the same cultural stronghold as it does in, say, Germany, or the United States.
So here is an alternative script for the video:
The Global South Version
It started with a road. Then came a wealthy man in a car. But the road was mostly empty, so other elites joined the party. And soon there was no space anymore. To accommodate the elites, the city tore up the sidewalks and bike lanes. The road was no longer safe for the 90-plus percent who do not own a car. People were forced into cramped minibuses, or to pay for taxis if they could afford it.
More sidewalks and bike lanes were torn up. The car became the symbol of upward mobility and safety. As the standard of living improved in the country, more people bought cars if they could. The bus and bikes became stigmatized. The leaders regarded biking, walking, and public transport as backwards. And being rich, they had their own cars. They found it frustrating ever to be stuck behind a bus, a bike, or a three-wheeler rickshaw.
As the the cars of the wealthy multiplied, the streets choked with traffic. What was once a symbol of status became a daily grind of honking, fumes, and standstills. The air thickened with pollution, and the roads that had once promised freedom became a trap. The wealthy were shielded from the worst of it, but the people – the workers, the vendors, the students – struggled on. They spent hours in traffic or waiting for minibuses, losing time that could have been spent with family or earning a livelihood.
A group of people from different neighborhoods came together. They began collecting stories from people on the streets – those who cycled to work, who walked long distances because they couldn’t afford the fare, who risked injury on unsafe roads. They learned how to use OpenStreetMap, and they mapped the reality of their city’s transportation infrastructure. With smartphones in hand, they charted where sidewalks were broken, where bike lanes were missing, where minibuses regularly broke down, and where accidents occurred. The data they gathered reflected the ground truth of the city – accurate, detailed, and undeniable.
As the map filled in, the picture became clear. The leaders of the city, who had once viewed car ownership as the ultimate goal of progress, could no longer ignore the reality. The congestion was unsustainable, the air unbreathable, and the city’s economy was being dragged down by inefficiency and inequality. The accuracy of the community’s data made it impossible to turn a blind eye. They realized that following the path of the global North, where cities were designed around cars rather than people, was a mistake they didn’t need to repeat.
The conversation shifted. Instead of focusing on the wealthy few, the leaders began to see the value of inclusive mobility. They saw how cities like theirs in the Global South could forge their own path – a path based on transport justice, sustainability, and quality of life. The community data showed that a system designed for the majority, not the minority, could transform the city.
The sidewalks were restored. Protected bike lanes sprang up, connecting neighborhoods. A network of electric buses replaced the aging, polluting minibuses. Instead of competing for road space, buses were given priority lanes. Shared bicycles and scooters provided affordable alternatives for short trips. Transport became affordable, accessible, and safe for everyone – not just the car owners.
Economic development followed. Local businesses, no longer choked by traffic or limited by inaccessible customers, began to thrive. The streets were filled with life – people walking, cycling, chatting at bus stops. The city leaders realized that by focusing on people, not cars, they had built a city where time was no longer wasted in gridlock. Where the air was clean, and the roads belonged to everyone. The wealthy still had their cars, but they used them less, enjoying the convenience of the city’s new transport network alongside everyone else.
The people had taken the data into their own hands, and with it, they had reclaimed their city.
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