transport - #81

Cuban car mechanics are arguably some of the best in the world! Due to lack of resources and money, car mechanics are forced to be innovative and economically friendly in finding and recycling car parts. Some parts are cannibalized from land fills, household kitchens and Soviet vehicles for example. But the most unusual adaptation is the plastic Flintstones vitamin bottle one mechanic got from relatives in the U.S. that he has rigged to hold in the car's brake fluid.

River Mekong is one of the most important traffic artery

Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, has a population of around 1,100,000 inhabitants. The city is saturated with road transport and pollution where most residents do not have the opportunity to buy their own car and use public transportation to get around the capital.

State buses, taxis driven by companies or individuals and small plates called taxi vans. For each means of transport, the user tries to find its place squeezing inside. I

Worldwide we can find more then a billion bikes. That's a lot. More then half of them are in China. The rest is spread all over the world. Here's one of a billion bikes, in Morocco.

Since China has become the world´s biggest and fastest growing market for cars, mega cities like Shanghai have to deal with an enormous increase of traffic volume.
Photos © by Thies Raetzke

Although being the world´s biggest market for cars by now, bicycles are still important and common means of transportation. These cargo bikes in Shanghai are not only used for the transportation of all kinds of goods but also for waste removal.

Photos © by Thies Raetzke

A perfect example of a truly sustainable and environment-friendly means of transport. This sight is still common in most parts of India. If not for these the traffic and the pollution caused by them would have made India a world leader in itself, for India is one of the cheapest and easiest places to buy an automobile. So much so, that our government gives educational loans to aspiring students at 12.5% interest rate, while automobile loans come at 7% or sometimes even 0% interest.

"Strange but true, a Chinese city is the best performer for sustainable transport, winning the 2011 Sustainable Transport Award by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). A bike-sharing program, wide bicycle lanes lined with trees, and a huge bus system that ties in with the city rail network are all part of the recipe for a winning transportation system in Guangzhou, China, according to the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP)." -

The Haifa subway is the shortest in the world and the design is totally unique. The system opened in 1959 and has 6 stations along its 1.8-kilometer track that climbs Mount Carmel in Haifa, a coastal city in northern Israel. The system transports around 2,000 people along the track each day and is among the most unusual subway stations in the world. Despite Haifa’s short tramway-like subway and efforts to improve the bus system, there are a ton of traffic problems in the city.

It’s rush hour in rural Haiti, as market vendors load up their vegetables and hustle home on horseback before the rains come. The one-lane excuse for a road between Les Ceyes and Jeremie is so tight that when two trucks approach from opposite directions, each honks furiously until one gives in and backs up a steep cliff in reverse until it can pull aside. Now, a foreign company is turning that road into a major highway in a desperate effort to attract a more modern type of commerce to this isolated, donkey-driven region. But will they come?