2023 Freetown DAT Report - Flipbook - Page 11
Freetown DAT
demonstrate a capacity of over 6,000 people per hour
(12,000 in both directions). This is on par with dedicated
transit lanes but with a distinct space advantage. While
transit lanes require dedicated road space—often taken
from other modes—the cable car simply moves above the
terrain with minimal pylons landing every 300 meters
or so. Certainly, landing a cable car at a station requires
a footprint, but multiple precedents demonstrate that
stations can be very compatible with the surrounding
built environment. The advantage for the trip between
station is obvious, especially in Freetown where housing
development is rampant and protected roadway or other
municipal rights-of-way are in scarce supply, making an
aerial transitway ideal.
This travel capacity does come at a financial cost that
exceeds operating a bus system with dedicated lanes,
but compared to other forms of fixed-guideway mass
transit, the cable car is certainly the most economical.
Comparatively, its space-saving advantages are only
achieved by subterranean systems at enormous cost.
However, the cable car is not a panacea. Passengers
are only able to board and alight at stations, leaving
travelers below the mid-spans reliant on other means.
Freetown’s cable car system might be able to serve a
number of unique trips, but many other trips will be
reliant on other means. To be successful, we must think
beyond the cable car alone.
A Multi-Modal Approach to Deploying a
Cable Car System
The proposed pilot deployment of the Freetown cable
car is focused on connecting the congested commute
spine of Bai Bureh Road with Freetown’s commercial
core—a downtown once replete with jobs and commerce
that have reportedly declined due to the difficulty of
getting people in and out quickly. Downtown is blessed
with an efficient grid of streets, but this soon falls apart
to a more vernacular urban pattern of narrow ways and
only a few direct arterials. As noted previously, Bai Bureh
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was conceived to alleviate some of this problem—at
least to Freetown’s port—but it has become congested in
time, and any westward extension or expansion of Kissy
Street would require many land takings and expensive
construction. Beginning in the interim at Kissy Junction
at Ferry Road, which serves the Kissy Ferry—with long
term plans to extend eastward towards significant
populations up the Sierra Leon Peninsula—the cable
car would carry travelers westward through two midstations at the Hillside Bypass and the Annie Walsh
School, ending on the waterfront in downtown. What can
easily be a 30-60 minute drive in traffic would become
a mere 12-minute journey, assuming standard speeds
of 20 feet/second and 30-60 second delays moving
through the midstations. Even if wait times to board
were 10 or 15 minutes, the journey would be noticeably
faster and worry-free.
Part of the difficulty optimizing the use of the cable car
will be the types of trips it can serve. While downtown
remains a primary destination for many workers and
shoppers, people coming from the eastern peninsula
are also heading to many other destinations the cable
car will not yet serve. In-town trips could benefit from
the cable car, but this assumes travelers near Kissy
Junction, the Hillside Bypass, the clock tower market
near Annie Walsh, and in the downtown itself need to
travel to locations at or near other stations, otherwise
the cable car is of limited value to them. This may
include employees and shoppers, as well as merchants
managing shops, government employees connecting
between municipal offices, and school children and
faculty of the school. Another near-term opportunity
as discussed elsewhere in this report is out-of-town
tourists originating at the waterfront to get to shopping
near the clock tower or to a new district near Kissy
Junction. However, there are many more residents along
the cable car route who may need to go to downtown
or beyond, including major employment hubs like
the government district, the port, the tourist district
of Aberdeen, or educational opportunities at many
secondary schools and Fourah Bay College. For these
travelers, other modes are needed.
Freetown’s primary transit system is (left to right) taxis, TukTuk’s and motor bikes.
While expansion of multi-modal options citywide besides
existing private buses, public buses, motor bikes, taxis
and TukTuk taxis will take significant planning and effort,
focusing on new complimentary travel options along the
pilot cable car corridor will be an important recognition
of the need for other modes of travel and may introduce
price points that can be affordable alternatives to a
cable car ticket.
First and foremost, the corridor needs improved bus
service to be able to serve residents who are either not
within walking distance of the cable car or need to travel
beyond its reach. A priority transit corridor should be
designated along Bai Bureh Road and Kissy Street with
a concerted effort taken to designate exclusive bus lanes
wherever possible and extended boarding platforms that
give space and prominence to riders, as well as shelter
from rain while waiting for a bus. A key element to make
such service successful is increasing current service
frequencies—a cost that is much lower than building a
cable car system. Public buses are the best available in
Freetown but are also heavily crowded. While private
buses reign in Freetown, expansion of high-quality public
transit is not a competitive threat given the high demand
and would only attract more riders, encouraging private
operators as well as taxis and TukTuk’s to become feeder
lines across greater geographies for the trunk public
transit lines, helping to bring better access to more
people across the city.
This corridor would also benefit from the introduction
of a commuter ferry service between Government
Wharf, Kissy Ferry and points eastward. The Kissy
Ferry is already a major point of departure, but it is not
