Beating the traffic jam

Cars are stuck in Battaramulla. Horn blasts rip through exhaust-filled air as the sun beats down on innumerable stationary vehicles. Haggard and drowsy faces peer out of the 177 bus as it inches along.

“It takes a little over two hours to get from my house in Kothalawala to my office in Fort. Then it’s usually the same amount of time to get back. I work eight hours a day and spend over four in transit. It’s not sustainable,” said N. Fernando, an office worker.

“How are we supposed to live outside of Colombo and work in the city? We spend our whole lives coming and going. Something must be done,” said S.K. Weerasinghe, a supermarket employee.

According to the Transport Ministry, around 450,000 cars, trishaws, motorcycles, and vans, along with 29,000 mass transit vehicles, predominantly buses, enter Colombo each day carrying between 1.8 and 1.9 million people.

Traffic is set to worsen, as there will reportedly be around 4.4 million daily commuters by 2035.

Though private transport modes account for 87 percent of the total vehicles on the road, they only ferry about 44 percent of the passengers to and from the Colombo metropolitan region.

“There are clearly way too many cars in the city. Most of them seem to carry one or two people. It’s very inefficient,” added Fernando.

Public buses carry around 48 percent of total passengers to and from Colombo, and each bus carries around 30 people on average. Though buses are more efficient people movers, they are painfully slow. The volume of traffic and Colombo’s poor urban planning are to blame.

Part of the Megapolis project, however, is to increase the capacity of existing roads and expressways, construct new highways, and widen and improve intersections. There is no doubt that these projects will temporarily cause congestion to increase, but they must be completed so that Colombo can continue to function as the population grows and more vehicles take to the road.

“Part of our short term plan is to improve the bottlenecks at various junctures in Colombo. We have identified between 30 and 40 locations where the traffic is terrible in the city, and the RDA and CMC will handle this. These two organisations will also handle road improvements within the city,” Megapolis Ministry Secretary Nihal Rupasinghe told the Daily News.

“We have programmes in place to synchronise stoplights, decrease congestion with better bus stop placements, and reduce traffic around schools. But we also need to overhaul our public transport system,” said Western Region Megapolis Planning Project (WRMPP) consultant and transport team leader Dr. Dimantha de Silva.

Part of this overhaul will be to modernise and electrify existing railways to take pressure off of the road network. As of 2015, trains transported a paltry 3.4 of total commuters in and out of Colombo. While the Galle corridor is well served by trains, service to other corridors is intermittent and often delayed, as many lines have but a single track, making it difficult to run service both ways.

“Improvements will be made to the Kelani Valley line, the Ragama-Negombo line, and the Panadura to Polgahawela line, and the WRMPP is working on plans to build new lines from Kottawa to Horana and Kelaniya to Kosgama,” said de Silva.

Though welcome, these adjustments will not be enough by themselves to ease the burden on road networks.

Well aware of this, the WRMPP, in conjunction with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), has released a plan to revolutionise the public transport network that centres on the construction of a rapid transit system (RTS) connecting the suburbs to the city. Though exciting, this solution is still a few years away, even if everything goes as planned.

Why LRT?

After much research and study, the WRMPP, along with JICA, settled on building a light rail transit (LRT) system instead of a bus rapid transit (BRT) network or monorail.

The WRMPP ruled out BRT as the best solution for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that the buses would handle vastly fewer passengers than the other two systems.

“We calculated that BRT could transport 13,000 passengers per hour per direction (PPHPD) at most, while monorail and LRT are projected to be able to transport around 30,000 PPHPD,” said de Silva.

Furthermore, the BRT would require land acquisition to build three lanes in each direction, as the width of current roads in Colombo would not be able to support a BRT system.

Though JICA conducted a feasibility study for a monorail line from Borella to Malabe, the option was also scrapped.

“Monorail is good for connecting two points, but it isn’t very good for corridors. Also, the cost of LRT is four percent less, and LRT has the advantage of being able to on the ground, underground, or on an elevated railway. Monorails are generally best when elevated only,” added de Silva.

According to the Megapolis Transport Proposal, about 17 percent of the LRT, once completed, would be at ground level, along with several stations and rail yards. This would significantly cut costs. The other 83 percent of the LRT system would be elevated, primarily constructed above roads so as to minimise land acquisition.

LRT

The WRMPP and the Megapolis Ministry have given JICA the go ahead to commence work on two of the Megapolis’ seven proposed LRT lines: a long line between Malabe and Borella that would serve Battaramulla and Rajagiriya as well, and another line connecting Borella, Union Place, Maradana, the Fort, Kollupitiya, and Bambalapitiya in a circuit.

A team of consultants and JICA engineers will conduct a feasibility study on the Malabe-Borella line and most of the other route commencing in early 2017. The study should take one year, and it will include the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and determine the necessary land acquisition requirements.

Only after the study will the Japanese government make its final decision on funding the project, which is forecast to cost north of $ 1.5 billion. Construction and implementation will take place after financing has been secured, bidding for the construction work has finished, and supplies of rolling stock, locomotives, and other equipment have been secured.

JICA projects that, upon completion, it would take just over 20 minutes to get from Malabe to the Fort, a trip that currently takes around two hours during rush hour.

The Malabe-Borella corridor was selected as the first project due to the fact that it has no public transport except buses.

While the monorail feasibility study, according to JICA, necessitated almost zero resettlement, the new study for the elevated LRT could reveal some additional difficulties.

“We know this route is feasible in principle from our last study. Now we have to see about the width we need for the twin tracks. We need to make sure that there is enough space between the buildings on either side of the road,” said JICA senior project specialist Namal Ralapanawe.

“It’s challenging now, because for the LRT you need wider space than for the monorail. So that is really one of the main items we need to look at in the current feasibility study. We will determine whether we should build the railway higher in order to go above the buildings,” she said.

It is because of difficulties like these and Sri Lanka’s lack of experience with electrified railway projects that JICA has exercised caution with the project. Representatives from JICA also would not give a definitive date by which the lines would be completed, whereas officials from the WRMPP stated that these would be complete between three to five years.

“Electric railways are new here, and elevated railways are new here. So, it is necessary for Sri Lankan engineers to be trained or to get accustomed with new technologies. We do not want to rush anything with this project,” said Chief Representative for JICA in Sri Lanka Kiyoshi Amada said.

Indeed, JICA’s restraint and cautiousness contrasts somewhat glaringly with the WRMPP’s plan, which states that feasibility studies for the other five LRT lines will commence within six months.

“We are planning to have feasibility studies for the other five lines go on concurrently with the JICA study. Then we will pursue private-public partnerships with firms that could build other routes while JICA is building their lines. The feasibility studies will guide us on which lines to build next,” said de Silva.

The JICA officials, conversely, advised against building all the lines at the same time.

“In politics speed is the thing. But with this project, speed should not be the thing. This is a billion dollar plus project using public funds, and the public could lose if you don’t spend the time to really do the study and really follow the process. Speed is always the excuse, but things must be done right for the public’s benefit,” said Ralapanawe.

“We are a little reluctant to talk about timelines because we want to make sure everything is properly studied before starting. The project will go smoothly and effectively if the correct work is put in before starting construction,” she continued.

Ralapanawe and Amada made it clear that they were not disparaging the WRMPP’s plan, but were instead voicing their opinions about JICA’s role in the project.

They did voice skepticism, however, that the entire $ 3.5 billion LRT network could be built concurrently.

“Traffic will be jammed for hours if all of the lines are built at the same time. If you block the roads, half the economy will come to a standstill. Again, speed is not the only factor. You need to make sure the country can function during construction so that the economy can grow,” said Ralapanawe.

Regardless of the difference in philosophy between representatives of the Megapolis project and JICA, what is clear is that the grand ambitions of the WRMPP should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt.

It is one thing to plan a $ 3.5 billion, seven line, LRT system, but it is something else entirely to actually execute this plan.

JICA, for its part, has signed on to build only two lines so far, to be constructed simultaneously and connected at Borella, in part because the company wants to see how the construction process goes and if LRT turns out to be a viable solution to Colombo’s traffic problems.

“We are not sure about the future. We want to concentrate on what we can do in the present,” said Amada.

Colombo has a massive traffic problem that needs immediate attention, but it appears the problem will worsen before it gets better. Patience will be needed, as it will likely be at least five years before Colombo has a viable public transportation alternative.

The light rail transit system in Malaysia