Integrar os marginalizados e expandir o leque de clientes:
Isto é, todos aqueles potenciais utentes que simplesmente não podem ou não querem usar os serviços dos operadores de transportes públicos porque as infrastruturas e/ou as regras não servem as suas necessidades e/ou preferências: pessoas em cadeira-de-rodas ou com outras deficiências e limitações/condicionantes de mobilidade, idosos, pessoas com crianças, shoppers, pessoas com animais de companhia, desportistas (surfistas, esquiadores, ciclistas),…
Actualmente, um tipo em Lisboa que queira ir surfar para Carcavelos e levar a prancha, vai de carro. Não tem muita escolha. Mas as condições podiam ser oferecidas para que ele pudesse ir de um modo multimodal: a pé ou de bicicleta e de comboio, por exemplo. Ou também de autocarro. E numa zona de esqui? 
Uma família que tenha que ir buscar as crianças às escolas e tenha que ir fazer compras grandes ao supermercado, não vai usar os transportes públicos, vai andar de carro. De que forma podemos tornar os TP uma alternativa viável para estas pessoas? Além das políticas de urbanismo que privilegiassem cidades densas e muito comércio de rua em oposição a grandes pólos comerciais centralizados…
Uma pessoa em cadeira-de-rodas ou não sai de casa ou vai de carro com alguém. Quando sai, nunca sabe até onde consegue ir, ficando impedida de continuar por meio de alguma barreira arquitectónica na via pública ou por falta de acessibilidades nas estações, paragens e veículos dos transportes públicos…
Uma pessoa que queira usar a bicicleta como meio de transporte, conciliando-a com algum outro meio de transporte público, nem sempre o pode fazer, e as condições à disposição não são as melhores…
A UE já tem uma directiva a acautelar algumas destas necessidades no caso dos comboios. Quando será que chega cá? E quando será que chega a outros meios de transporte (autocarros, metro,…).
E alguém que precise de levar o seu cão ao veterinário, ou que queira viajar com ele, ou que pretenda ir passear para um parque e levá-lo? Vai de carro. Não haverá maneira de ganhar estas pessoas nestas situações de utilização para o transporte público, ganhando estes clientes e poupando-se no uso do espaço, no trânsito, na poluição, no consumo de combustível?…
Sugiro visita aos projectos D.O.B. (Dogs On Board) e ao B.O.F. (Bikes On Front).
Surfing is popular where I live (Santa Cruz, California), but surfboards over 5′ long (i.e. almost all surfboards) are not permitted on the public buses. Most surfers drive to the beach, but a substantial number to bike to the beach using bike-mounted surf board carriers. These carriers not as fancy as the ones shown in your photos, but they do the job.
The Rapid Transit District for Denver & Boulder provides public transportation to the Eldora ski area in Boulder County. When I lived in Colorado that’s how my son and I went skiing. This is a very popular way to get to the ski area for children under the driving age. Everybody stacks their skis and snowboard in the luggage compartment and unloads after arrival at Eldora (about a 30 minute bus ride from downtown Boulder).
Here in the USA, people who advocate for public transportation also tend to advocate for more local shopping choices beyond the huge mega supermarkets. Instead of buying two weeks worth of groceries in a single trip, we tend to make more frequent shopping trips. We also don’t buy as much — we’re not typically going to make impulse purchases of unneeded items simply because we have to think about our carrying capacity and weight load!
Dogs are typically prohibited on US public transit. Bike facilities, however, are almost universal now.
Thanks for this great post on the topic.
Hi Fritz,
I have never seen any kind of surfboard bike rack live. I found these examples online. 🙂 It has to do with the fact that biking for transportation is a very marginal activity, I guess. Our public transit in general is not prepared to handle bikes and other similar gear (like boards, wheelchairs, skis,…), there are no special carriages or racks.
Animals are not permitted in our transportation system, either. Well, unless they are carried in a proper box/cage… I used to think that was good, I wouldn’t feel confortable in a place full of dogs and cats, maybe not even safe. But when I saw that website it struck me that there’s a huge number of trips that people need or like to make with their pets and that the public transit is missing on and the roads are winning in cars… There’s got to be a solution to this that involves integrating this users. 🙂
Yes, mobility and urban design are part of the same problem and solution. Urban sprawl and big malls sucking dry all the street shops force us to get on our cars… 🙁
Thanks for stopping by. Do you happen to understand portuguese or did you use Google or Babelfish to translate this? 😉 I tried once or twice to see how it turn out and it was terrible! 😛
Estas fotos fizeram-me lembrar San Sebastian. Lá a cultura do mar é grande e por todo o lado se vê jovens e menos jovens de pranchas (surf e bodyboard) e a andar de bicicleta.
I understand Spanish and I can read part of your blog, but Google Translate gets me the rest of the way. I hope you don’t mind my English comments!
Wheelchair access is required on any public conveyance by Federal (national) law in the USA and has been for several years! I’m surprised EU does not have a similar requirement.
I’m also surprised to learn that sprawl and “big box” development is a problem in Portugal. My impression is that you Europeans have a better grasp of the problems of development than we do in the USA.
English comments are fine, I’m almost bilingual. 🙂
Oh, Portugal usually has nice looking laws, it’s the implementation and enforcement of them that frequently fails.
Besides, before disabled people can get in some bus or train or whatever, they have to get out of their houses, and the public space is not prepared for wheelchairs and the like (sidewalks and zebra crossings with steps instead of ramps, ramps that are too inclined and slippery – when they exist, cars parked everywhere, obstructing passage… *sigh* It’s pretty terrible.
About the big malls, Portugal is aiming for the Guiness Book on that, there’s lots of malls and there’s many more planned to be built all through the country. In the meanwhile, anything that is not a mall or a private condo (a.k.a. the street) is slowly dying and becoming unpleasant territory…
We’re “europeans”, but of a different kind. 😉 We’re in the South, everything’s different, starting with people’s mentality…