Lepep Tram Unlikely Biggest Project Ever

Kind of obvious if you have listened carefully to some of the numbers used by Minister Bodha on the same day George Chung deemed that the controversial tram project was basically riskless. As you might not have the figures mentioned six months ago to show the savings over two projects – not exactly the same ones – that were initially promoted by the Labour Party are copied in the table below. 

Given that the road decongestion program (RDP) will spend about Rs3 billion every year for a handful of years and that it will not be the first time nor the last that billions will be wasted to fight the traffic Frankenstein – which is growing bigger thanks to policy-making which is very clumsy – it shouldn't take long before you hear Mr. Bodha's successors announce that the RDP has overtaken the tram project.

The thing is that these unnecessary projects – which constitute the silly response to problems caused by a growth in the car pool which has been left unchecked for way too long – will not only make Mauritius weaker but will also make her uglier. It will make her weaker because as Intel has reminded us a car stays idle over 90% of the time and that hardly makes it a productive investment. Especially when you consider all the other problems of having too many of them. This explains why Singapore has been shrinking her number of cars to levels not seen in eight years. Mind you we're talking here about a country which has nine people to every car and a GDP per capita more than five times ours. Here we have like six people to every car and foolishly think that we can handle more. And that too when heavy road-users already describe several parts of our road network as an overcrowded barracoon.

These projects will definitely make Mauritius less attractive. Just ask any of the 270 trees of the Promenade Roland Armand. That's too heavy a price to pay for things that don't qualify as smart development especially when we know that the Bus Rapid Transit is a much better alternative that will immediately bring much-needed relief to road users. We should also start to act as a middle-income country – and soon a fifty-year old – by protecting our world-famous views. Just like London has been doing for more than a century. Which explains why the Leadenhall Building had to be built like a cheese-grater.

The least Pravind Jugnauth can do is to organise a referendum on such an important national issue. Making good on one electoral pledge will not only deepen our democracy it will also help avoid total political disaster in the next general election.

PM Fails To Convince We Need A Tram

Here are some of the reasons he recently put forward in favour of the controversial project:

1. You would stop using your bike. Hmm, riding a bike keeps people in shape. In Edinburgh bus corridors double up as bike lanes.  And here's what the rush hour looks like in Copenhagen where 45% travel by bike to school or work.

2. You would stop travelling by bus. Ok, so the tram will be a door-to-destination service. Interesting. To say the least.

3. Won't need to wake up early to wait for a bus God only knows when it's arriving. And not being sure you'll have a seat. How will we get to a tram station if we don't live near one? Schedules can be improved, posted at bus stops and bus routes reassigned accordingly. We can also reserve 20% of the front seats of buses for people over 60. Buses can be very comfortable too.

4. You will know when you arrive at your destination. Again these can be fixed by penalising buses that are late for no good reason. Significantly curbing the unchecked growth of private cars won't hurt either.

5. You won't be stuck in traffic anymore. There's traffic everywhere now and at hours we never had it before. A proof that our transportation policy is too primitive. Blame it to a great extent on a car pool that's growing in an uncontrolled fashion.

What Does Singapore Know That We Don't?

Plenty. Let's take their transportation policy for example. Why have they been removing cars from their roads for three straight years? Btw, this has brought back the car pool there to levels not seen in 8 years. Well they are decreasing the number of cars because it is a very inefficient technology. A car is idle more than 90% of the time. So it's pretty unproductive. And it is costly in so many other ways: time wasted in traffic which could be put to better use, burning fuel, pollution, stress and so on. The so on has to include all the space it uses and the other dimensions of traffic that slow you down.

Now when you look at what is being done here it's hard not to conclude that our transportation policy is being crafted in a very amateurish manner. I was totally horrified to hear my friend Georges Chung – an excellent economics teacher at the HSC level but a rather lousy policy-maker – say that one of the assumptions in the transportation planning involving the Metro Express is that the number of cars would be increasing by 5% every year. He obviously hasn't had a good look at the data – he's not the only one for sure – and apprehended the consequences. And it's not the first time. Indeed he has been a huge advocate of 'competitive depreciation' for many many years even suggesting that it is painless. The relevant data seem to tell an entirely different story.

Nando Bodha appears quite overwhelmed too. He scrapped the point system a couple of years ago. Quite a sloppy decision. He's currently spending billions to decongest the road network. Enlisting the help of the Korean Expressway Corporation is not a proof of mindfulness. They couldn't care less to help you saddle yourself with a prehistoric technology as long as they get paid. One that requires the transformation of our sacred Champ de Mars into a dinosaur park. That too after the obliteration of La School.

We're far better off with a bus rapid system (BRT) and freezing duty-free privileges for a couple of years. It's time for Lepep to hit the pause button. And organise a referendum.

Travayer Transpor Dir Politisyins Kwar Pei La Pu Zot Papa

At What Age Are Mauritians Dying These Days?

This is different from life expectancy which looks at how long a baby born in a year might expect to live on average. Which by the way was 77.69 years for women and 70.59 years for men back in 2012. So baby girls born 5 years ago should expect to watch 7 EPL seasons more than their male counterparts. And eat an extra 7,775 meals assuming they have their last kari pwason ek farata a few minutes before leaving. The numbers for Rodrigues are better: 78.47 years for women and 73.27 for men. That is baby girls in Rodrigues were expected to live an extra 9 months and baby boys 2.68 years more. The urit will definitely not be leaping for joy. The overall number for our Republic in 2015 was 74.6 years or 9.1 years less than world-beating Japan.

It hasn't always been like that. At least for women. Indeed female life expectancy for the island of Mauritius has been up to two-and-a-half years more than those for our sister island. This was true in 1983. The situation had reversed by 1992 and since 1998 women on the two islands were expected to live within one-and-half years of each other. Life expectancy for men in Rodrigues has been higher by at least two years between 2006 and 2012 even hitting a max of 3 years in 2009. Mauritian men could probably catch up by running at least 5 minutes every day. A Bus Rapid Transit system should make that a lot easier.

To answer the question in the title I looked at the age of the people who passed away in the last three days. The average for the 130 of our citizens who just departed is 68.06 years. The standard deviation is 15.22 years.

What an Articulated Bus Looks Like