[Image 1] Buses have to share the same lanes with every other vehicle in the current state of mobility in the Metropolitan Area of Asunción.
Image by the author (2023).

INTRODUCTION

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For people in the metropolitan area of Asunción, Paraguay [1], traveling every day from home to work and vice versa, is becoming a matter of patience. Most of them have jobs in the capital, and naturally the hours of travel increase exponentially the further their point of departure is. This daily commuting occurs in direct detriment to their quality of life, since they have to spend hours inside a car or a bus, instead of dedicating that time to leisure activities, or in any other, more productive way. Rapid urban sprawling –with migration from rural to urban areas as one of its main reasons–, the lack of urban planning, a preference of users for individual cars, and a transportation system that is outdated, not efficient and run by private enterprises which regulate prices, make for a context in which a solution to the transportation issue is urgent, before the system collapses. 

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This problem follows a pattern that is familiar to other Latin American cities, and has increased in recent times, “especially as a result of disordered urban growth, of a rapid and unusual expansion of the ownership and use of private automobile and a high degree of disorganization of public transport, everything that has additionally caused significant negative environmental impacts on the cities.” [2]. A failed attempt to complete the building of a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system called Metrobus on one of the main connecting avenues of the city, whose construction started in 2017 and was cancelled by Congress in 2020, costing the people of Paraguay an estimated 170 million dollars. The project was killed due to corruption and mishandlings from the government, leaving hundreds of shops with bankruptcy in the process [3]. As of today, there is no other alternative contemplated to replace the failed Metrobus. 

The objective of the essay will be to explore the way in which our cities are being disrupted by the increased preference towards cars with single users, and the lack of governmental efforts to introduce politics that aim to paradigm shifts in the transportation system, while making a plea to the necessity of sustainable mobility systems, establishing the benefits of an improved, collective transportation system towards the quality of life of all citizens in general, and because of it towards equality and accessibility.  
 

To do so, the first chapter will introduce the reader to a broader analysis of the context regarding transportation in the metropolitan area of Asunción, including, among other evidence, the results of a recent study conducted by the National Statistics Institute of Paraguay (INE, by its acronym in Spanish) that shows user preferences and habits in regard to mobility in the area. The second chapter will explore transport measures applied to cities in Latin America to mitigate congestion and solve mobility issues, to show that the shift in paradigm is feasible and it has been done in similar contexts. 
Ultimately, this essay will look to start conversations about the need to change a car-centered vision of Paraguayan cities, aiming towards more inclusive transportation systems, ones that allow every single citizen to have access and to afford commutes in modes that are efficient, safe and environmentally friendly, while considerably reducing traffic congestion and improving the quality of life [Image 3]. The two lanes differentiated by the pavement tone in the middle of the image were to be destined to the failed Metrobus system along the Mariscal Estigarribia Avenue, one of the main avenues to enter and leave the capital, image by the author (2023).

CURRENT MOBILITY IN THE METROPOLITAN AREA OF ASUNCION

As part of a project called ‘Asunción Ciudad Verde de las Américas – Vías a la Sustentabilidad’ [4] [5], the National Statistics Institute (INE) conducted a series of surveys from September to November 2021, that aimed to collect data on mobility patterns of the population. The results were recently published in a document called ‘Mobilidad Urbana del Area Metropolitana de Asunción. Resultados de la Encuesta de Mobilidad del AMA’. [6]. Among its objectives, the study sought: “to know the current mobility within the metropolitan area of Asunción and estimate projections, and to identify deficiencies in the provision and operation of transport services, both in regard to infrastructure and operation.” [7]. 

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The collected data confirms that there is a preference towards the use of cars for daily commutes. Of all the households of the people surveyed, 54.6% of them have at least one car, 22.3% have at least one motorcycle, 28.7% have at least one bike, while 25.4% own neither type of vehicle [8]. 

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Another important fact that was revealed by the document is that of all commutes that took place in the 24 hours prior to the survey, 81.2% of them required the use of transportation. In contrast, 18.8 % of the trips were made by foot, comprising distances of 10 blocks or less [9]. 

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It is important to point out, in regard to the particular act of walking in an urban environment in the cities of the metropolitan area of Asuncion, that even though sometimes people need to travel short distances that could easily be walked, they tend to choose the use of their own means of transportation, mainly cars, but also motorbikes and buses. This can probably be attributed to three reasons: 

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1. The weather. 
Temperatures in Paraguay are usually very hot, with the heat worsening each year: at the moment, in August 2023, mid-winter, temperatures average 28 degrees Celsius. This makes walking even short distances very unpleasant, and lately this situation has not been limited to the summertime, as explained. 

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2. Urban infrastructure. 
Even on a chilly day if people decided to walk to their places of work, they would probably encounter an unfriendly urban scenario. Not all streets are equipped with sidewalks in good conditions, and even though it is stated in traffic laws that pedestrians have priority on the streets, this is not the case in Paraguayan cities, with vehicles not stopping to allow them to cross the streets, which adds safety concerns to the journey.

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3. The ‘car culture’. 
As mentioned before, if possible, people prefer to drive their own car, vehicles becoming easier to buy with time. The two previous reasons cited in this very paragraph help justify this choice, added to the fact that the public transportation system is not efficient, with dated units controlled by private enterprises that put their interests before the ones of the citizens. The individual preference for cars also has some other reasons that are common to Latin American contexts, such as “the sign of status or social condition of the owner of the vehicle […]; the poor quality of the buses [and] the saturation of buses at peak hours; a feeling of security in the automobile because of the reckless behaviour of some bus drivers, or because of the possibility of being a victim of crime onboard the buses.“ [10]

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The survey also revealed the average time spent in commutes per activity, the longest ones being going to work (41 minutes), getting back home (35 minutes), medical or dental services and/or personal errands (35 minutes), and work-related errands (34 minutes). The surveyed tend to   spend less time travelling for activities that involve education (usually involves taking children and teenagers to their schools, 21 minutes), shopping (17 minutes), and entertainment and leisure (16 minutes) [11]. These results are a reflection of the consequences of urban sprawling and the lack of urban planning: citizens have to spend more than an hour going to work and coming back to their homes in the peripheries of the capital or in a neighbouring city, for one. Furthermore, to satisfy basic needs such as education, nutrition and leisure, on average travelling for at least 16 minutes is required, keeping in mind that the survey establishes that most of the urban mobility requires a motorized means of transportation [Image 2].

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Furthermore, it is important to point out aspects related to the existing public transportation system. The average waiting time for a bus is currently 20 minutes [12], a period that is unacceptable in an efficient system, that not only adds to the amount of time spent on the already long journey, but increases safety concerns especially for more vulnerable groups of the population. A different survey was conducted in 2016 and compiled in a document called ‘El transporte público desde una perspectiva de género. Percepción de inseguridad y victimización en Asunción y Lima’ [13] points to public transportation as a predominant mode of mobility for women in the cities mentioned in the title, demonstrating that the perception of insecurity and the victimization level in public transportation in both cities were amongst the highest of Latin America at the moment of the surveys. Between 75% and 80% of the women users of transport felt insecure travelling alone at night, while 64% perceive public transportation as insecure or very insecure [14].

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When asked about the most relevant aspects that the users find important and necessary in a public transportation system, the most mentioned attributes include frequency (49.6%), punctuality (18.1%) cost (8.7%), and time of travel (6.7%) [15]. The users also voiced their least preferred qualities of the system, citing the state of the bus stops, punctuality, the lack of availability of information about the system and its routes, the ticket prices, the frequency and the time of travel as the worst aspects of using public transportation  [16].

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To close this section, it is also pertinent to point out that the municipality of Asunción and the cities of the Metropolitan Area have started to build a system of bike lanes called AMAbici [17] that connects, as a first measure, some of the most important points in the cities. Nevertheless, the building of the bike lanes has not been entirely well received by the population, mainly because of two reasons. First, they appear to be randomly placed across the streets because their paths are somewhat winding and do not always follow the same route logic of the roads for other types of transport. However, the project for the bike lanes considered the topography of the area, establishing the routes along streets with relatively equal height with respect to sea level, avoiding ups and downs that could make the trips more difficult and unpleasant. And second, the “car culture” described in previous paragraphs, that leads people to believe that having a bike lane in front of their property takes away from a space that should be destined to cars, and in the case of shops clients might be driven away because customers can’t park right in front or nearby the stores. [Image 4]

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REGIONAL EXPERIENCES: FEASIBLE ALTERNATIVES

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The urban infrastructure of the cities of the metropolitan area, including street layout, sewerage, electricity supplies and other features, make for a new public transportation system in an underground setting, as an example, very difficult. The idea of an elevated alternative, with rails built above the existing main arteries of the cities has been proposed before, but this option requires a careful and thoughtful urban design process, having in mind that the structures required for such systems have great impact on the daily life of the cities, and while they may be beneficial for mobility purposes, they can create a series of new urban problems in the spaces left below the railings. 

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The usual solution proposed by the government and its agencies is to amplify the road surfaces, adding new lanes to existing routes or paving new roads, efforts usually accompanied by political interests that intend to send a false message of progress. As has been proved by cases in other Latin American cities, enlarging the road surfaces only worsens the situation because this “creates new motorized traffic that occupies the new road space, increases congestion in the urban perimeter, creates new peripheral developments that consolidate residential migration; increases the distances and duration of trips, with more fuel consumption and pollutant emissions; and generates new saturation of urban accesses at peak hours.” [18]

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Since 1984, the year in which it was inaugurated, Paraguay and Brazil share the Itaipú hydroelectric dam, as of today the third largest of its kind in the world. It produces clean, renewable energy that supplies all of Paraguay and some of the biggest Brazilian cities with electricity, producing even more energy than what is needed to power all of Paraguayan houses at the moment. 

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With the amount of electrical energy available, and the limitations created by the infrastructure of Paraguayan cities, the failed Metrobus lines that were to be run electrically on its very own lanes on one of the main connector avenues of the metropolitan area, make sense as the correct alternative to mitigate traffic congestion, and to provide an efficient, comfortable and accessible means of transportation for all citizens.

To further demonstrate how a BRT transportation option with demarcated stops, schedule and frequency is a feasible alternative, regional experiences of the application of this system in similar Latin American contexts will be provided next. 
 
The first case involves Curitiba, the Brazilian city that is an example of urban good practices around the world, its public transportation system being no exception. From the 1960s, the city implemented a process of urban planification that sought to stop the concentric growth of the city and that had focus on public transportation and road design. A longitudinal city was proposed, following a central axis from north to south that held more intense uses and functionalities, these decreasing further from the axis.  [19]. The central axis was also the path for the new express lines of public transportation, with feeders at both ends and buses for a hundred passengers. In 1980 the east-west axis was built, and with it came the ‘interbarrios’ line, which connected neighbourhoods without entering the centre of the city. From 1988, 170-passenger buses were in circulation, and from 1991 the ‘Ligeirinho’ was implemented, a new direct line with fewer stops and very distinct ‘tube stations’. By 2005, 900,000 paying passengers were using the system, and when elderly and disabled people were accounted for (trips are free for them), the number ascended to 1,645,000 users. [20]

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One of the reasons for the success of the Curitiba system, for authors Mello and Rojas, is the existence of only one enterprise that manages the transportation system and that can guarantee its operation, with functions and responsibilities perfectly established. [20] The authors go on to say that the challenge for countries in a Latin American context consist in “providing a quality and coordinated transport system, which allows intermodality. Single fare policies, intermodal subscription and high frequencies are as important as integrated public organizations, which give coherence to the management and allow the planning of the city’s transport, for it to be solved in the most sustainable and inclusive way”. [21]

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A BRT system called ‘Transmilenio’ was inaugurated in the year 2000 in Bogotá, Colombia, and as of today it is the only system of massive transportation that serves the capital city. According to studies, in the beginning there was a notable improvement in the mobility and accessibility to public transportation for the citizens, so much so that it was replicated in other Colombian cities [22]. The system allowed the removal of more than 7.000 small buses that ran privately, and that were part of the daily traffic congestion.  By the year 2009, the system covered 1.6 million trips every day, and the benefits were environmental as well, with a reduction of the use of fuel and its emissions “by more than 59 percent since it opened its first line in 2001” [23]. Even though today, 23 years later, the system faces a new crisis associated with its inability to cover the great transport demand of actual Bogotá, and with the relationship of the system’s infrastructure with public spaces and the way it gets tied together with the city, it is a remarkable example of the optimization of public transport, that offers invaluable lessons for contexts like the Paraguayan. 

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BRT systems offer the benefits of a rationalised use of the available roads and avenues, allowing for buses to run on their independent lanes along established paths and schedules, with immediate positive effects on traffic with the reduction of congestion [24]. They are also considerably cheaper than other alternatives that necessitate underground or overground structures that could also have a bigger impact on the image of the city and create new urban issues. 

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CONCLUSION

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In Asunción and its metropolitan area there is undoubtedly an urgency for an efficient, inclusive and sustainable system of public transportation. This article proposes the idea of going back to the BRT alternative, whose infrastructure was once under construction but was halted because of mishandlings from the authorities in charge. The positive experiences in regional contexts, such as Curitiba and Bogotá that were presented in the previous chapter, but also the ones in Quito, Sao Paulo, México D.F, Guayaquil and Guatemala [24] are very encouraging. Whatever the alternative that ends up being chosen to solve the public transport issue, it is crucial that it understands the role that mobility has in the quality of life of the citizens, understanding ‘mobility’, as a “quality by which people and goods can be moved in a dignified, opportune, reliable and cheap way, in order to meet basic needs of housing, education and health, through an adequate infrastructure of urban transport.” [25]

In a context where more than 50% of the households own at least one car, it is critical that public policies promote the idea of the collective as a sustainable way to think about the urban environments of the future, including a sustainable and accessible system of public transportation. The reduction of inequalities associated with accessibility is vital in metropolitan areas, where the current policies create segregated urban spaces, enhancing differences between those who are able to travel by car and those who rely on the deficient systems of public transportation to go about their everyday lives. 

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Mobility problems are “also a reflection of the daily difficulties of a social, economic and environmental nature, more acute in urban areas, and a sustainable city can only be achieved if the environmental and social dimensions are combined in the concept of ‘sustainable urban mobility’” [26]. The people of the metropolitan area of Asunción are ready for radical change in the public transport system, their quality of life deserves it. 
 

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[1] The metropolitan area of Asunción comprises a total of 11 municipalities located around and including the country’s capital, within a territory of 2582 square kilometers.

[2] Figueroa and Reyes (1996).

[3] Riquelme (2022).

References

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Alonso Romero, Gerardo and Diosey Ramón Lugo-Morín. ‘El estado del arte de la movilidad del transporte en la vida urbana en ciudades latinoamericanas’. Revista Transporte y Territorio, nr. 19 (2018) pp.133-157. 

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‘AMABICI: Red de Bicisendas del Área Metropolitana de Asunción’. Municipalidad de Asunción. https://www.asuncion.gov.py/interinstitucionales-y-coop/amabici-red-de-bicisendas-del-area-metropolitana-de-asuncion (accessed 3 August 2023)

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Díaz-Osorio and Julio César Marroquín. ‘Las relaciones entre la movilidad y el espacio público. Transmilenio en Bogotá.’ Revista de Arquitectura, vol. 18 nr. 1 (2016) pp. 126-139.

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Figueroa, Oscar. ‘Transporte urbano y globalización. Políticas y efectos en América Latina.’ Revista EURE – Revista de Estudios Urbanos Regionales, vol. 31 nr. 94 (2005) pp. 41-53.

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Figueroa, Oscar and Sonia Reyes. ‘Transporte y calidad de vida en las ciudades latinoamericanas. Sus relaciones con el uso del suelo y la contaminación urbanas.’ Revista EURE - Revista de Estudios Urbano Regionales, vol. 22 nr. 67 (1996) pp. 29-44.

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Lupano, Jorge A. and Ricardo J. Sánchez. Políticas de movilidad urbana e infraestructura urbana de transporte. (Santiago de Chile, Naciones Unidas, 2009).

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Mello Garcias, Carlos and Fernando Rojas Parra. ‘El transporte público colectivo en Curitiba y Bogotá.’ Revista de Ingeniería. Facultad de Ingeniería Universidad de los Andes, nr. 21 (2005) pp. 106-115.

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Riquelme Esteche, Abel. ‘Una autopsia del metrobus de Asunción’. Ciencia del Sur. https://cienciasdelsur.com/2022/03/21/una-autopsia-del-metrobus-de-asuncion/#:~:text=Seg%C3%BAn%20el%20informe%20de%20la,reconocida%20por%20el%20ministro%20Wiens (accessed 4 August 2023). 

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