Me and my family live in Tripoli which is the capital city and largest city of Libya. Tripoli is located in the northwestern part of Libya. We live 1.5 km away from downtown Tripoli. The city combines pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods and automobile suburbs. Pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods are more common towards the center of the city such as The Old City suburb. Automobile suburbs get more common as we move further from downtown Tripoli. The city has a population of about 1.1 million people [1]. The main transportation mode in Tripoli is driving and I think this is partly because the gas prices are very cheap, 1 Liter of gasoline is cheaper than 1 Liter of water. 290 out of 1000 Libyans have cars and this is the highest rate in Africa [2]. Consequently, traffic congestion is a daily common problem. We have a bus system but the service it provides is not that good. The routes of the bus system are sparse and the frequency is not high which makes people choose cars to transport in.

[1]:“MAJOR URBAN AREAS – POPULATION”. CIA World Factbook.

[2]:Bank Data: Motor vehicles (per 1,000 people)”. The World Bank. Retrieved 2014-02-09. Archived.

My hometown, Tripoli, could benefit significantly from the experience of Copenhagen, Denmark. Copenhagen’s “Calming the traffic” approach to solve traffic congestion problems has been highly successful. I think the way this approach was implemented was really effective where they targeted the city’s main street and made it pedestrian-oriented. This not only reduced traffic but also benefited economy and made people enjoy the outdoors more often. It has made Copenhagen a people oriented city rather than a traffic congested city. I think Tripoli should aspire to achieve such a goal. In Tripoli, we have many streets with lots of shops, restaurants, and entertainment but are mainly accessed with cars which causes lots of traffic congestion. Copenhagen’s approach gives us good insight into how such traffic could be gradually reduced. Besides traffic, this also helps increase public life and affect the social norms in a positive way.

In Tripoli we don’t have a good bus system that encourages people to reduce their car usage. To solve this problem, I think Curitiba, Brazil is a perfect example because it has the best bus system in the world, as mentioned in the module. According to Streetfilms, 75% of people in Curitiba commute to work by bus, so we could say it’s the main transportation mode. Interestingly, even though it’s a bus system it’s equivalent to a subway in efficiency defined in terms of the number of passengers per space. This is achieved by using dedicated lanes for the buses, buying tickets in advance, and boarding at the same level. I think the main reason this bus system has been successful is its accessibility in terms of space and time. This helps people answer the collective action problem of choosing between car vs. bus. I think these technical ideas would really help Tripoli implement a good bus system.