public transport

This picture was taken at the bus and maxi station in Port Of Spain Trinidad and Tobago around 4 o'clock pm on a Friday afternoon, just before most people get off work and would be rushing to go home. I've been at this central terminal a number of times unfortunately during rush hour and even though they have a better system than most country i have been in, the system still is flawed and leads to confusion and madness. This is definitely an urban lifestyle as you wouldn't or would rarely see that in a rural setting.

With an increase in population growth and an increase in the number of businesses establishment in Port Of Spain Trinidad and Tobago, there is a definite increase in the influx of people in and out of the city daily. Therefore whether we're talking about passengers or goods, the transport sector is still experiencing strong growth each year. Moreover, transport is 98% dependent on oil which Trinidad and Tobago has an abundance in, which should in turn make public transport cheaper and more reliable. However public transport is affordable but still not yet reliable. 

Historically, movements within cities tended to be restricted to walking, which made medium and long distance urban linkages rather inefficient and time-consuming. At the other end of the spectrum, the dispersed urban forms of Trinidad and Tobago, which were built recently, encourages automobile dependency and are linked with high levels of mobility. The major cities are also port cities with maritime accessibility playing an enduring role not only for the economic vitality but also in the urban spatial structure with the port district being an important node.

The more radical the changes in transport technology have been, the more the alterations on the urban form. Among the most fundamental changes in the urban form is the emergence of new clusters expressing new urban activities and new relationships between elements of the urban system. In the city of Port Of Spain, the central business district, is still the primary destination of commuters and serviced by public transportation,and  has not been changed by new manufacturing, retailing and management practices as yet, but most industries are located in more rural area, while commercial zones and most social businesses are still in or around the cities. 

Although transportation systems and travel patterns have changed considerably over time, one enduring feature remains that most people travel between 30-40 minutes in one direction. Globally, people are spending about an hours and a half per day commuting, wherever this takes place in a low or a high mobility setting. Different transport technologies, however, are associated with different travel speeds and capacity. As a result, cities that rely primarily on non-motorized transport tend to be different than auto-dependent cities. Transport technology thus plays a very important role in defining urban form and the spatial pattern of various activities. Still, the evolution of the urban form is path dependent, implying that the current spatial structure is obviously the outcome of past developments, but that those developments were strongly related to local conditions involving to the setting, physical constraints and investments in infrastructures and modes.

The amount of urban land allocated to transportation is often correlated with the level of mobility. In the pre-automobile era, about 10% of the urban land was devoted to transportation which was simply roads for a dominantly pedestrian traffic. As the mobility of people and freight increased, a growing share of urban areas was allocated to transport and the infrastructures supporting it. Large variations in the spatial imprint of urban transportation are observed between different cities as well as between different parts of a city, such as between central and peripheral areas.This could be seen from west Trinidad to east and from central to south. The major components of the spatial imprint of urban transportation are, Pedestrian areas, which  Refer to the amount of space devoted to walking. This space is often shared with roads as sidewalks may use between 10% and 20% of a road's right of way. In central areas, pedestrian areas tend to use a greater share of the right of way and in some instances whole areas are reserved for pedestrians. However, in a motorized context, most pedestrian areas are for servicing people's access to transport modes such as parked automobiles, Roads and parking areas, which Refer to the amount of space devoted to road transportation, which has two states of activity; moving or parked. In a motorized city, on average 30% of the surface is devoted to roads while another 20% is required for off-street parking. This implies for each car about 2 off-street and 2 on-street parking spaces. 

Transit systems, such as buses share road space with automobiles, which often impairs their respective efficiency. Attempts to mitigate congestion have resulted in the creation of a bus route through the center of the area reserved to buses on a permanent basis. Transport terminals, which refer to the amount of space devoted to terminal facilities such as ports, airports, transit stations,and distribution centers. Globalization has increased the mobility of people and freight, both in relative and absolute terms, and consequently the amount of urban space required to support those activities. Many major terminals are located in the peripheral areas of cities, which are the only locations where sufficient amounts of land are available.

The spatial importance of each transport mode varies according to a number of factors, density being the most important. If density is considered as a gradient, rings of mobility represent variations in the spatial importance of each mode at providing urban mobility. Further, each transport mode has unique performance and space consumption characteristics. The most relevant example is the automobile. It requires space to move around but it also spends 98% of its existence stationary in a parking space. Consequently, a significant amount of urban space must be allocated to accommodate the automobile, especially when it does not move and is thus economically and socially useless. In large urban agglomerations close to all the available street parking space in areas of average density and above is occupied throughout the day. At an aggregate level, measures reveal a significant spatial imprint of road transportation among developed countries.