Read the passage below carefully and answer the question that follows.
For decades, municipal authorities across rapidly urbanizing coastal West African metropolitan regions have viewed informal artisan transit networks—such as minibuses and shared taxis—as chaotic remnants of unguided urban expansion that ought to be systematically dismantled. In response, municipal planners have repeatedly attempted to impose top-down, capital-intensive Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) networks modeled strictly after Western infrastructure paradigms.
However, these ambitious municipal infrastructure projects frequently collapse into financial deficits and operational paralysis. Their failure stems largely from an inability to serve high-density, informal settlements where narrow roadways and fluid commuter demands render rigid schedules and large buses impractical. Conversely, informal transit systems thrive precisely because of their decentralization, dynamic routing, and immense capacity for local employment creation.
Recent urban transit research highlights the urgent need for a strategic paradigm shift. Rather than pursuing the systematic eradication of informal operators, municipal authorities must design hybrid regulatory models. Such initiatives incorporate the hyper-local accessibility, agility, and socio-economic reach of artisan drivers into official urban transit blueprints while introducing enforced safety standards, centralized digital ticketing systems, and dedicated lane corridors. Ultimately, sustainable urban mobility in developing African megacities depends not on replacing informal systems with expensive foreign infrastructure, but on transforming informal operators into recognized, co-regulated partners within a unified public transport ecosystem.
Which of the following best summarizes the central argument of the passage?
- Sustainable urban mobility requires integrating informal transport operators into regulated public transit frameworks rather than trying to replace them with rigid, capital-intensive networks.Cevap
- BFormal Bus Rapid Transit systems fail in West Africa primarily because narrow roadways in informal settlements prevent large buses from navigating rigid routes effectively.
- CMunicipalities should immediately privatize all public transport services and eliminate Western infrastructure models to maximize city revenue.
- DInformal artisan transit networks are inherently chaotic and must be systematically dismantled to prevent financial deficits in metropolitan regions.