Analizing the effects of mega transportation projects on Istanbul

Transportation can generally be defined as mobilization of people and goods to required place in required time. According to this definition, the influence of performance of the transportation system on the economic and social life in the city is enormous [1], [2]. Transportation is grouped under five sub-systems as transport of rail, road, sea, air and pipeline. Among these, rail and road are two systems that can be substituted for each other [3]. Given the investment costs of transportation projects, the issue of which of these subsystems will be given priority is of great importance in terms of economy. Transport sub-systems form a unity as infrastructure, vehicles, management and all its elements. Necessary transportation policy should be determined in order to achieve purpose of having a healthy transportation, compatible with social and economic development and supporting it, the cheap, fast, organized, safe and non-polluting; in short, with lowest cost to the country [4]. The traffic condition of Istanbul, application area of this study, not only in Turkey but also in the world, is one of the worst one. Due to unplanned growth of the city and its population growing faster than expected, the transport conditions are worsening in Istanbul. Because of the uncoordinated growth, staying in the daily commuting traffic becomes longer, public transport infrastructure and road infrastructure become inadequate. In addition to that, being center of attraction for various organizations on international scale, and drawing significant amounts of tourist by its historical attractions, its airports have already reached occupancy limit. And waiting for takeoffs and landings at airports have begun to emerge. Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB), Ministry of Environment and Urbanization (CSB) and the General Directorate of Highways (KGM) are working to resolve these difficulties in Istanbul with the new projects. North Marmara Highway and 3rd Bridge Project, 3rd Airport Project of Istanbul, Avrasya Tunnel Project and Marmaray Project are four of the most remarkable projects recently. However, as mentioned above transport projects should be evaluated from many perspectives. The necessity of such large projects, optimal cost, location or route to be built, any potential harm to the environment and other effects that may occur should be investigated carefully. These four projects have caused serious concerns among the public. However, public institutions responsible for the project failed to address the concerns of the public. In this study, the reality of these concerns has been investigated in a sense by consulting opinion of academics and engineers working in the field of transportation. The positive and negative effects of projects / investments, subjected in this study that would be on the city were investigated by the Delphi technique. In this technique, specialists and academics working in the field of transport were conducted a third round questionnaire, unaware of each other. At the end of each survey round, the responses evaluated by statistical analysis and each item was confirmed whether a consensus was reached. The questions, unable to reach a joint decision at the end of each survey round were asked again trying to reach a compromise.