User:Transport.ny/Institute for Transportation and Development Policy

The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) is a US-based non-governmental non-profit organization providing technical assistance to cities and local advocacy groups on sustainable transportation development throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. ITDP focuses primarily on developing bus rapid transit (BRT) systems, strengthening the bicycle and rickshaw industries, and planning facilities for bicycles and pedestrians. Other programs include traffic demand management, transport for healthcare access and service delivery, and revitalization of city centers. According to its mission statement, "(ITDP) is committed to promoting environmentally sustainable and equitable transportation in developing countries."

Overview
Founded in 1985, ITDP was created by a group of sustainable transport advocates in the U.S. to counteract the export of costly and environmentally damaging models of dependence on the private automobile to developing countries and promote modal diversity in transportation planning. In its first ten years, ITDP advocated for the redirection of lending activity by the World Bank and other multi-lateral institutions away from an exclusive focus on road projects and toward more multi-modal transport solutions. In the early nineties, ITDP helped establish the Transport Sector Task Force, an advisory panel to the US Treasury Department's Multi-lateral Development Bank liaison office, to comment on specific transport projects. In its 1994 study "Counting on Cars, Counting Out People" ITDP published a preliminary set of guidelines for reforming the World Bank Transport Sector economic appraisal to make it less biased in favor of motorways. The report's key recommendation that economic impacts on non-motorized road users be included in the appraisal is being incorporated into World Bank practice.

ITDP is currently active in 10 countries throughout the developing world. In 2009 Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, who has received wide acclaim for making the city of Bogotá a "model of enlighted planning" during his four year tenure, and was instrumental in the establishment of that city's exemplary TransMilenio BRT system, was elected as President of the Board of Directors of ITDP. Walter B. Hook has served as the organizations executive director since 1993.

ITDP publishes the magazine Sustainable Transport annually.

Bus Rapid Transit


ITDP is currently active in a design and/or consulting capacity in the BRT programs of Ahmedabad, India; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Johannesburg, South Africa (Rea Vaya); Jakarta, Indonesia (TransJakarta); Guangzhou, China and Cartagena, Colombia.

In June of 2007, ITDP published the BRT Planning Guide along with the United Nations Environment Programme, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), the Hewlett Foundation, and Viva. The guide draws from the extensive BRT design experience of Latin American transit planners, and aims to disseminate this information in the U.S. and other countries around the world. The guide is currently available in English, Portuguese and Chinese, and is free for download in .pdf format from the company's website.

Cycling and Pedestrianization
ITDP is currently working with the government of Mexico City in the development of their Bicycle Master Plan. The goal of the Master Plan is to increase bicycle trips as a portion of all trips to 2% by 2010 and to 5% by 2012 through the design of an extensive network of bicycle paths. The design will institute connectivity between transit modes, along with traffic calming measures and cycling advocacy.

ITDP is also working with the government of São Paulo, Brazil in the design of a pilot bicycle path in the neighborhood of Butantã. For the project, ITDP commissioned a report for a 58 kilometer feeder network, which will lead cyclists from adjacent streets and sidewalks to the bicycle path. The path will pass through a high-visibility corridor of the city, and if successfully implemented could be expanded to surrounding neighborhoods and throughout the city.

Past projects have included a redesign of India's traditional cycle rickshaw in collaboration with local experts, reducing the weight of the vehicles by 30% and adding a multi-gear system to increase efficiency; increasing Africa's cycling capacity while bolstering local industry through the establishment of the California Bike Coalition (CBC); and traffic impact and mitigation analysis along with outreach to local interest groups in the pedestrianization of Malioboro Road in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

City Center Revitalization
ITDP has initiated a project with the Mexico City government to provide technical support for the revitalization of Mexico City's Historic Center. ITDP will manage the planning and implementation efforts of the revitalization, in addition to promoting street maintenance and cleanliness, supplementation of public security, and the management and controlling of parking and street vending activity in the area. ITDP claims that this reorientation of the Historic Center towards pedestrian and transit oriented development will reverse decades of deterioration, attract tourism and investment, and improve air quality in the notoriously polluted city. Additionally, ITDP will concentrate its efforts as part of the team developing Mexico City’s Bicycle Master Plan to design routes that connect to the Historic Center, further integrating multi-modal development of the area.

A similar project is currently under way in São Paulo's city center.