Cable car fiasco highlights Madagascar's transport troubles

Last August there was an air of excitement in Antananarivo as the first paying passengers stepped onto a cable car that would whisk them over the traffic-choked streets of Madagascar’s capital. The government hoped the line, spanning 8.7 km, would carry 40,000 passengers a day, helping to relieve congestion and secure faster journey times for Antananarivo’s long-suffering commuters. Plans were already afoot for the initial Orange Line to be followed by more overhead links. But barely a month after the cable car began regular operations, Madagascar lurched into crisis. The expensive new infrastructure was seen by youthful protesters as one of the most blatant examples of President Andry Rajoelina investing in prestige projects at the expense of the needs of ordinary citizens. As unrest deepened, several parts of the line became a target for rioters. Rajoelina was gone by early October; the cable car has not operated since. There is a “very broad consensus” that the whole process behind the cable car scheme was flawed, says Fanny Voélin, an expert in Antananarivo’s urban geography. The project was always driven by the need for Rajoelina to boost his image, she says, rather than meeting the needs of the people. The fact that the infrastructure was built by French companies and relied on French funding did little to dispel the sense that the cable car had little to do with Malagasy interests, she adds. Power struggle The ill-fated cable car project was not necessarily an inherently bad idea. Everyone who has experienced Antananarivo’s traffic can see that greater public transport capacity is a must. A cable car that carries passengers over the hilly city is potentially a neat solution that avoids the need to demolish buildings to construct a street-level system. With hindsight, though, it is clear the project overlooked several key problems. One is the price of a ticket. The cost of between $0.60 and $1.10 for a single journey is around six times higher than a typical minibus fare, meaning the system could be portrayed as a plaything of the rich. Perhaps a more fundamental issue was that Antananarivo struggled to find a way to provide power for the system. During its brief period of regular operations the cable car could run for only two hours in the morning and two in the evening, due to the cost of fuelling generators to keep the cars moving. From the point of view of the Gen Z protesters, who took to the streets in anger at recurrent power cuts and the rising cost of living, it is easy to see why the cable car became a symbol of Rajoelina’s rule. A flying white elephant? The future of the cable car is unclear. A spokesperson for Colas, the French construction company that built the system, declined to comment on any timetable for potentially resuming operations, telling African Business that decisions on repairing damaged equipment are the responsibility of the state. The new government has said it hopes that the line can resume operations by the end of this year, although a firm timeline is nowhere in sight. The extent of the damage to the cable car equipment is difficult to gauge. Yet while the technical challenge of repairing the system is likely to be surmountable once the required funding is available, the political questions over resuming operations are potentially more difficult. A “new narrative” around the project will be needed, Voélin says, if a restart is to be successful. Even with that, she remains sceptical about the prospects for the line. “I don’t know actually how it could work, economically speaking. I don’t see a solution that would make it profitable without massive subsidies.” Repairing railways With the cable car out of action for the time being, there is no end in sight to the chronic traffic congestion that afflicts Antananarivo. Other transport schemes enjoy a more promising outlook, however. In April the World Bank announced a $200m financing package for transport infrastructure in the country. A key priority is the rehabilitation of the Tananarive–Côte Est railway, which links the capital with the key port city of Toamasina. The railway, completed by the French in 1913, is in a sorry state, with traffic dropping by more than half since 2011. The result of the railway’s “very bad performance” is that the RN2 highway, which follows a similar route to the railway, has been left “taking all the weight” of goods traffic, says Solofoson Rabary, a transport specialist at the World Bank in Madagascar. As this road winds up into Madagascar’s central highlands towards Antananarivo, lorries slow to a crawl as they attempt to navigate sharp uphill bends, causing lengthy delays for car drivers who are prone to taking reckless risks in attempting to overtake. “It is important to shift some freight to the railways,” says Rabary, who explains that rail can handle greater volumes and cope better with heavier freight. Reducing freight on the RN2 will also have road safety benefits, he adds. World Bank funding is designed to rehabilitate and strengthen large sections of the 372 km line, including work to raise the track in flood-prone areas to improve resilience to extreme weather events. Road to progress Improving transport infrastructure in Madagascar will inevitably be a long-term process. The vast distances and harsh terrain on the world’s fourth-largest island mean constructing and maintaining roads and railways is far from easy. Some promising signs are visible, however. Rabary highlights some key improvements to journey times in recent years, achieved with the help of World Bank-funded road projects. For example, he says, a typical car journey between Antananarivo and Toamasina has been cut from 12 hours to eight. Meanwhile, a trip from the capital to the north-westerly city of Mahajanga is down to 11 hours, compared to more than a day before improvement works. But Rabary warns that Madagascar still needs to improve how it manages transport infrastructure so that the benefits of upgrades remain in place. “The biggest problem here is lack of maintenance,” he says, noting that the World Bank has been in continuous discussion with the government about improving maintenance. One key priority, he argues, is to clarify responsibilities, determining which agencies are tasked with managing particular sections of road. Recent history shows that Madagascar has had, at best, mixed success with transport projects. Incremental improvements in road travel cannot erase the damaged caused by the bungled cable car project and the continued deterioration in the rail network. Achieving more sustained progress in improving transport infrastructure will be vital for the country if it is to reverse its economic fortunes and unlock growth potential in a range of key sectors.