Urban Transport : Can Public-Private Partnerships Work?

Cities exist, grow, and prosper because
they take advantage of scale economies and specialization
wrought by agglomeration. But output growth inevitably
stresses transport infrastructure because production
requires space and mobility. To prevent congestion from
crowding out agglomeration benefits and to expand the supply
of urban land, cities must invest in transport
infrastructure. Building more infrastructures, especially
highways, just fosters sprawl and fails to reduce congestion
that people respond to more capacity by driving more and
wasting even more time. In this view, a central task for
policy makers and planners is to curb the preference for
cars. Proponents of this view advocate subsidizing public
transportation; enacting taxes and restrictions to raise the
costs of owning and driving cars; and establishing zoning
regulations to foster compact living, shrink the spatial
distribution of activities, and reduce the number of vehicle
trips. Yet urban planners often lack formal and real
authority to cut through the bureaucratic web of multiple
authorities and jurisdictions. Can public-private
partnerships (PPPs) deal with these problems better than
conventional public provision and ensure proper maintenance,
timely expansion, and less congestion?, is discussed in this report.