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Joseph S. Szyliowicz, in his article ‘Turkey’s Surface Transportation Policy and Sustainable Development’, talks about the lack of planning in the current transport system of Turkey. In Turkey, between 1970 and 1990, huge investments were devoted to highways thus ignoring the development of railways and sea transport. According to Szyliowicz, not just Turkey, but many countries around the world, does not have an integrated system of transport that promotes sustained development. An efficient system of transport is one, which utilizes each mode of transport according to its merits, gives the people choices and transports people and goods efficiently, without causing damage to the natural environment.
However, in Turkey the present transportation system which gives huge importance to road transport at the expense of rail and marine, has not contributed in meeting the country’s overall economic needs. The author in this article explains how the current transportation system of Turkey, is not energy efficient. Transportation systems consume enormous amount of energy. It consumes millions of tons of concrete and steel facilities such as airports, roads and railway lines, and huge amount of plastics and metals, to build the vehicles used for transporting people and goods.
Apart from these resources, the already depleting fossil fuel, particularly oil, is consumed in huge amounts to keep the transportation system functioning. There are already many doomsday predictions going rounds about the limited resources of natural oil. Estimates say earth’s oil resources would last for hardly another 30-35 years. Transportation alone consumes 60% of the oil produced globally. Turkey’s transport system heavily relies on oil, and thus unfavorably affecting its trade balance, as huge amounts of oil has to be imported to feed the needs of the monstrously growing land transport system.
This problem is further aggravated by the use of technologies and practices that are not fuel efficient. Most of the vehicles used for land transport in Turkey, are old and thus are not fuel efficient. Szyliowicz stresses that, the fuel efficiency standards can be improved only if stringent speed limit measures are taken, which the he do not foresee happening in the near future.
The other serious concern raised by the increased land transport is the amount of pollution caused by it. The congested Turkey traffic contributes to three kinds of pollution – Air pollution caused by the carbon monoxide released by the vehicles, Noise pollution which inflicts both physical and emotional strain on the people, and water pollution caused by the seepage of contaminant particles into the water bodies. Thus, the natural environment of the country also suffers due to the inefficient planning of its transport system.
Another important aspect of a transport system is that it should enable safe travel, which is not the case with the Turkey transport system. The period between 1970 and 1996 saw a rapid increase in the number of road accidents from 19,000 a year to close to 345,000 a year. The main reason behind this growth in accident rates is the over-reliance on road transport, lenient traffic laws, and lack of adequate infrastructure.
Szyliowicz explains that, despite great amount of money being spent on the road transport in Turkey, it does not serve any meaningful ends, as most newly constructed motorways are underutilized. The fund required for the construction of these motorways, was primarily sourced through foreign debts and it in turn negatively impacts the economy.
The basic problem, the author finds in the Transportation system of Turkey is that, it is the result of inadequate planning and the road transport was encouraged in expense of rail and marine transport, because of political reasons. To redeem the situation the author says that, the State needs to impose stricter legislations and laws pertaining to traffic rules. He also urges that the projects which are not yet completed should be reassessed, and only those projects that add meaningful value to the nation should be allocated resources and the others should be shelved.
The points made by Szyliowicz are valid considering the fact that, the Turkey’s surface transport system places a huge burden on the society. Also, urgent Governmental action is needed for revamping the other two modes of transportation namely rail and marine transport. Particularly in rail transport, there is a need for not just investment, but also proper planning and a need to improve the quality of service. Thus, there is an immediate need for a new master plan to overhaul the existing road transport, and create new projects in the areas of rail and marine transports.
