Urban sprawl, public transport, and increasing CO2 emissions: the case of Metro Manila, Philippines

Current international discussions on the increasingly critical levels of carbon emissions from the transportation sector commonly attribute the causality chain to urban sprawl growth–private car use–carbon emission. An often assumed development context of this causality chain is that common of developed country urbanization. However, in the particular context of developing country urbanization, urban sprawl and associated workplace–home distanciation may lead to more intensive use by the urban workforce of public mass transportation system, instead of higher dependence on private vehicle travel. Thus, the source of the rise in carbon emission may actually be the public transportation system. Utilizing mixed methods, combining quantitative (origin–destination matrices) and qualitative data gathering and analysis, the authors present a case study in Metro Manila which has been experiencing sprawl and increasing costs and unaffordability of land and housing in the workforce’s vicinity of employment. This, in turn, causes greater distances of daily travel between home and workplace using public transportation system. When the latter is characterized by fuel-inefficient small vehicles with second-hand engines, higher carbon emission results. We argue that the convergence of multiple interacting factors such as urban sprawl, lack of affordability of housing near the centres of employment, high dependence of commuters on public transports, longer distance travel by commuters, and low fuel efficiency of the public utility vehicles primarily causes the increase in CO2 emission from the transport sector. Implications of this case to policy scoping of immediate and long-term state responses for carbon emission mitigation in transportation sector are discussed.