GUAM SHOULD CONSIDER APPROPRIATE SMALL-SCALE TRANSIT

PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT

Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i

Commentary

GUAM SHOULD CONSIDER APPROPRIATE SMALL-SCALE TRANSIT

John A. Peterson

HAGÅTÑA, Guam (Pacific Daily News, Mar 20, 2009) - E.F. Shumacher, the author of "Small is Beautiful," once lectured an audience on growth and human scale in development, and commented, "I have young grandchildren who are so much fun to watch as they grow. Every time I visit them they’ve grown inches taller. However, I sincerely hope that someday they stop growing!"

He was talking about the need for appropriate development and appropriate technology, and planning with limits to growth and human scale in mind.

The planners should heed this advice as they ponder public transit on Guam. Instead of throwing another 50 behemoth buses at the problem, there needs to be careful consideration of small-scale, decentralized programs.

The current bus system on Guam doesn’t work. It has very low ridership, it is massively subsidized, it fails to operate on time and the routes are so limited it’s difficult to cross the island efficiently or get to most neighborhoods before the next tide comes in!

It’s expensive to operate giant air-conditioned buses on precious diesel that will get costly again once demand picks up in the global economy. Salaried drivers have to be paid even if there are no riders. The heavy dinosaurs, natives to big urban centers like Detroit or Houston, destroy the pavement and raise road maintenance costs.

Buses designed to go 50 mph aren’t appropriate for an island that is zoned for 35 mph, and, rarely, 45 mph. Speed is one aspect of scale that we could contemplate: slower, more frequent, more numerous transits and routes in smaller vehicles is far more appropriate to island-style transit.

The jeepneys in the Philippines aren’t just quaint relics of World War II, they are the core of a people-friendly, efficient and effective transit system. Jeepneys and routes are franchised or owner-driven, and flourish without government investment. The fares are very cheap, and they move people where they need to go.

At the ends of the jeepney routes, tricycabs deliver people to less accessible locations. Like the jeepneys, they are a small-scale, appropriate technology. Look around the islands in the Pacific. In Tahiti "le truck" moves people for a little more than US$1.50 throughout Papeéte. They are open-air and frequent, small-scale transportation. In American Samoa the buses are colorful and frequent and cheap.

On Guam we could evolve our own decentralized small-scale style and system. We could call it the "carabao trail" and could even put in slow lanes for vans, scooters and bicycles.

Traffic on Guam is getting worse by the day. Long lines at rush hour on Route 4 heading toward Mangilao and Yona, along with gridlock on Marine Corps Drive, are not desirable and will get worse as population grows with the military buildup.

Why not a fleet of franchised small trucks or vans, fueled by LP gas, driven by owner-operators? A system of pulsed, short routes between high density nodes would deliver transportation every 10 to 15 minutes for most places on the island.

With transfers, a passenger could get from Agat to UOG in three or four vans for $1, and could probably make the trip in less than an hour. That’s a good time to read the paper or a book or meet and talk with your neighbor, or talk on the ubiquitous cell phone. If you drove that distance every day, you’d pay about US$5,000 a year to operate a vehicle. On our own version of "le truck," you’d pay US$450 a year for the same distance. The government would pay nothing, except of course for the roads, in which we are already invested.

People on islands move to a different rhythm than those in Houston or Dallas. Like proas swarming on the sea, small vans moving in short, quick pulses can move a lot of people very quickly, and with less congestion, energy and pollution than either giant buses or cars and SUV’s.

The transportation planners can probably put the numbers to it and try it out; let’s hope that they think outside the bus and make some real-world, small-scale, appropriate designs for Guam’s future.

John A. Peterson is the director of the Micronesian Area Research Center and a resident of Asan.

On Guam we could evolve our own decentralized small-scale style and system. We could call it the "carabao trail" and could even put in slow lanes for vans, scooters and bicycles.

With transfers, a passenger could get from Agat to UOG in three or four vans for US$1, and could probably make the trip in less than an hour. That’s a good time to read the paper or a book or meet and talk with your neighbor, or talk on the ubiquitous cell phone. If you drove that distance every day, you’d pay about US$5,000 a year to operate a vehicle. On our own version of "le truck," you’d pay US$450 a year for the same distance. The government would pay nothing, except of course for the roads, in which we are already invested.

John A. Peterson is the director of the Micronesian Area Research Center and a resident of Asan.

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