Transportation is one of the most important areas of the IDB’s work in Peru. With a portfolio of more than $450 million of transportation projects under execution, the IDB is helping improve access to education, health services and the workplace for millions of low-income Peruvians both in the cities and, the Andean highlands.
The Bank is currently financing the third phase of an innovative road maintenance program in rural areas. Under the project, which began in the late 1990s, the Bank has not only helped finance the rehabilitation of rural roads but also worked with local communities to create associations and microenterprises that regularly maintain these roads.
The project devised a sustainable way of maintaining roads in remote locations and helped create jobs for the local population. The IDB has financed the rehabilitation of nearly 13,000 kilometers of rural roads in the first two phases of the project and helped create about 700 microenterprises in charge of maintaining more than 14,000 kilometers of roads.
An impact evaluation of the second phase of the project, which ended in 2008, showed that travel time fell 30 percent on average and freight costs fell 15 percent. Schools in the project areas reported an increase of 20 percent in the number of children attending classes.
The IDB is also helping to improve transportation in metropolitan Lima. Drawing from its successful experience in other Latin Americancities, the IDB is financing a project that is creatingan integrated, urban mass transit system for Peru’s capital.
A centerpiece of this system consists of building 26 kilometers of dedicated road corridors in Lima for exclusive use by extra-long articulated buses. This Bus Rapid Transit system includes 35 bus stops on raised platforms, two intermediate terminals, 30 kilometers of feeder roads linking outlying neighborhoods to the main terminals, cycle paths, environmental enhancements and pedestrian bridges.
The system will operate 600 buses running on natural gas, transporting an estimated 600,000 passengers daily, or 8 percent of Lima’s public transport demand.
Once completed, the project is expected to cut travel time to downtown Lima by as much as a third, improve safety for passengers and reduce the level of carbon emissions.