Urban Transport Projects │ Related Documents 
Quality transport services and infrastructure enhance the productivity and competitiveness of cities through numerous avenues. At the macroeconomic level, they generate growth by facilitating trade and by increasing access to the gamut of amenities and services crucial to the development of human capital, including health and education. Cross-country studies indicate that investment in transport raises growth by increasing the social return to private investment without crowding out other productive investment. At the microeconomic level, transport improvements that increase overall accessibility contribute to productivity gains; they also increase access to markets and hence the diversification of outputs. The quality of transportation infrastructure and public transport services affects the location decisions made by firms and individuals and the efficiency of the labor market, helping to match more closely labor demand and supply. Economic and demographic growth, urbanization and rural migrations have, however, led to a rapid expansion of Latin American cities, placing increasing pressure on its transport infrastructure and services, and raising associated accessibility problems. Often times, urban sprawl is making the journey to work excessively long and costly for many urban dwellers, and especially so for some of the very poor. Increasing car ownership has also led to increased congestion and traffic-generated air pollution, and threatens to overwhelm the existing transport infrastructure. The Bank’s involvement in the urban transport sector is thus a response to the challenges raised by the rapid growth of Latin American cities, and by the need to ensure that the cities are well-positioned to meet the demands of an increasingly global economy. The World Bank operations aim at reducing transport costs – not only in a financial sense, but in terms of time and environmental damage as well – and increasing transport efficiency, enhancing urban productivity, competitiveness and contributing to the region’s overall economic growth. By acting on several fronts such as public transport enhancement, infrastructure investment, traffic management, coordination of public sector policies in land use and transport planning, private sector participation and environment-friendly transport solutions, the urban transport portfolio of the Bank ambitions to reconcile high mobility with high quality of urban life. It is also a partial response to some of the more intractable problems associated with urban poverty, not only in terms of access to economic opportunity, but also in terms of the broader dimensions of social inclusion through improved access to schools, health facilities, and wider social interaction.
URBAN TRANSPORT PROJECTS Back to Top
RELATED DOCUMENTS
Public Transport and Urban Poverty: A Synthetic Index of Adequate Service (2.8MB pdf) The Rail Decentralization and Modernization Program in Brazil: Lessons Learned (50kb pdf) Back to Top
|
RSS