The current ministerial cabinet
announced a few weeks back that a new city next to Amman is in the planning
stage. One argument for the new project is that Amman is highly congested and
therefore, the need has arisen to move to another site. The decision, in my
view, is not only rash, but also unstudied.
اضافة اعلان
Since traffic congestion is the
excuse, let us look at the transport sector in Jordan. A detailed and
comprehensive 2022 study by the World Bank should have been an eye-opener for
the government. (Alas, it seems that it was not.) According to the study, the public
transport system in Jordan is “uncoordinated, inefficient, and has poor
coverage”. With most buses and taxis individually owned, Jordan has
approximately 1,400 buses, 4,000 minibuses, 4,000 shared taxis, and 16,000
taxis.
The number of cars grows by
approximately 6 percent per year, a growth rate that is higher than that of the
population. Only one-third of public transport users are women and less than 50
percent of women use public transport. Additionally, 52 percent of women are
dissatisfied with the public transport system. Furthermore, 47 percent of
Jordanian women have turned down employment opportunities because of the
absence of viable public transport options, which contributes to the fact that
Jordan has one of the lowest rates of women’s participation in the labor force
in the world, at 12 percent.
The current ministerial cabinet announced a few weeks back that a new city next to Amman is in the planning stage. One argument for the new project is that Amman is highly congested and therefore, the need has arisen to move to another site. The decision, in my view, is not only rash, but also unstudied.
The unemployment of youth,
currently at 49 percent, has also been exacerbated by the public transport
system. Youth spend 23 percent of their income on transportation, which is an
extremely high number relative to most countries. Households pay 17 percent of
their income for public transport. These percentages have increased since the
government increased the cost of fuel, which led to raising the fares.
Instead of providing an efficient
public transport sector that enables greater efficiencies everywhere, the
government has been underscoring transport infrastructure (roads and highways)
without paying proper regard to pedestrians. Consequently, pedestrians are
pushed out of the streets and cities in favor of vehicles.
The other option: fixing the
transportation crisis
The loss to the economy is
estimated at $3,000 million annually — not counting the economic loss of
keeping women away from work. So, why has the government failed to improved the
public transport system? One cannot claim the ignorance of decision-makers as
an excuse; the World Bank study is not the first to mention this issue.
One possible explanation is that
the government is at impasse or suffering from a moral hazard. From the current
status quo of importing cars and not having a proper public transport sector,
it profits over JD1 billion per year in customs, sales tax, special taxes,
registrations, road taxes, fines, renewals, etc. If people were to buy cars at
a lower rate, the government would forfeit a sizable portion of this
income. Worse still, after coming up with the Public
Private Partnership (PPP) Law, the government desires to place tolls on roads
as a PPP project instead of, say, offering a railway system.
From the current status quo of importing cars and not having a proper public transport sector, (the government) profits over JD1 billion per year
One might also observe that a few
years back, a study of the capital by the Greater Amman Municipality showed
that it was not congested at all. In fact, close to half of its lands are
empty. So why build another city? Maybe because someone wanted to emulate
models in neighboring countries; or because the model had already been
suggested by a previous cabinet and some studies are already available. One
cannot simply sit and speculate a reason. Instead, we must get serious and
solve our very real and present transport conundrum.
Read more Opinion and Analysis
Jordan News
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