A COUPLE of months ago, when I hailed a cab in a neighbouring GCC country and discovered it was a Tesla EV, I felt like a Flintstone pretending to be a Jetson. Electric vehicles are all about today and in many countries, even shopping malls and big public parking spaces in some countries advertise that they offer access to EV-charging stations.
Although Bahrain has been ranked 18th in the global electric vehicle readiness stakes and plans have been announced for an EV factory here which will manufacture two-wheelers, three-wheel electric tricycles and passenger vehicles, pulling up to recharge your EV battery in a roadside charging station or flagging down an EV taxi are still a distant future scenario in the kingdom.
We do see more EV scooters at the lower level – my neighbourhood cold store sends out deliveries on an EV buggy and kids zoom around on Segway-style two-wheelers. They say they have a rechargeable battery pack which they take to their designated EV battery recharge station and keep ‘topped up’.
Here is the snag, though: there are not enough EV charging stations yet in Bahrain. Some committed aficionados who have invested in big-brand EVs have gone the whole way and installed a charging unit in their garages – the equivalent of having your own petrol station. But that is not a practical solution and we shall need a better EV charging network before the switch to electric catches on.
(Don’t you feel like you are in a curious time warp? Did the owners of stagecoach inns where horses were rested and changed, say the same thing about petrol pumps?)
Sustainable transportation is an important cog in the wheel that drives countries towards the SDG Goals that the world has committed to. We have tried public transportation – and Bahrain does have a good network, although I have heard people complain about the very basic bus stops – open to the elements and without the ubiquitous phone charger plug you will find in other termini like the airport. Sometimes public transport users wait 45 minutes for the bus and without a seat to rest, it can be problematic.
Now we are moving up a level to build a metro rail network which will help us move cross-border too. In all this, we are also exploring old-fashioned public transport modes like the water taxi between jetties but I suspect those are more for the novelty value.
Ultimately, the test of a really effective sustainable transportation solution is how many members of the public find it useful, what sort of network quality it represents – re-fuelling stations whether electric or petrol-based, number of vehicles available, access ways like roads, rail lines etc. – and also how it impacts our move towards net zero and sustainability.
Right now, though, we need to check how we should manage the scrum of vehicles on the roads of Bahrain and also how vehicle-owners responsibly handle parking issues. Especially in the busy shopping and residential hubs, where shops and restaurants arbitrarily place traffic cones or chairs to block parking spots in front of their premises. With the weather getting better, pavements too will be invaded by sheesha stations and diners. Can we start streamlining these everyday problems please?
meeraresponse@gmail.com
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