http://www.hindu.com/op/2008/03/02/stories/2008030252811500.htm
Enthusiastic public response surrounding the launching of Tata-Nano had raised a question about the future of mobility in our cities. Nano is a dream for the vast number of Indian families struggling in rain and heat on two wheelers or precariously hanging for lives from rickety tinpot buses. But do we have the space to drive in cities already teeming with bumper to bumper traffic?
The future of mobility in our cities needs to be addressed on priority, as we are moving towards an increasingly urban future. There is a spatial shift as well. The IT-BPO sector, the main drivers of urban economy, is locating to self contained business parks in the fringe areas of the big cities.
This combined effect of growth in the suburbs and rising road congestion had led the State governments to construct highways and flyovers. However, as the Americans found out the way back in the 1970s, expanding freeways tends to further encourage automobile use, along with rising energy cost, pollution and travel time — we are realising now to our peril.
Between 1981 and 2001 on an average, population in the six metro cities, had multiplied by 1.8 times but the number of vehicles by over six times. With 1,421 cars per square kilometre, Kolkata now has higher car density than vastly more affluent Berlin.
Loss of man-hours
In India, Delhi has the most extensive road space along with an elaborate programme of flyover building. But, in the last ten years, road length increased by 20 per cent and cars by 132 per cent. Where do we go from here? According to a report, in the Delhi NCR area 420 million man-hours are lost every month due to traffic congestion.
Compare this with New York, Paris or Singapore — great cities, where people get around on foot, by cab or via mass transit. Urban policies actively discourage cars in core areas. In Tokyo, you cannot own a car unless you own a private parking space. London introduced congestion charges.
The present mess in India is due to short-sighted and uncoordinated policies on land use and transportation. Spatial planning is more and more governed by the real estate developer’s interests, in the name of public-private partnership. Public transports are notoriously mismanaged and inadequate. In the glittering cyber city of Gurgaon, without private vehicle, your only option for mobility is to hop on a stretched auto-rickshaw with dozen other hapless souls.
Buses cater to over 60 per cent travel needs and cars for less than 10, but pay more taxes per vehicle kilometre, say a CSE research. The real estate costs are sky high, but with a ten rupees parking fee, you can occupy 23 sq. m. for a day. Try renting equivalent office or shop space — you’ll be charged full commercial rates. Diesel subsidies meant for the trucks and buses are gobbled up by chauffeur driven limousines.
Exemplary urban systems
It need not have been this way. In Bombay and Calcutta, we inherited exemplary urban systems with elaborate suburban railway network. It is another matter of course that subsequent capacity augmentation did not match population increase. Charles Correa points out Bombay was shaped by the British railway engineers — as they laid the tracks first and development followed afterwards.
Calcutta went a step further with an extensive feeder network of tramways providing clean and affordable mass transport, which we have now almost destroyed with our vehicle centric thinking — when in Europe and America trams are being revived to reduce congestion and carbon footprint.
Integrated mass transit is not the monopoly of the affluent West. Jaime Lerner in Curitiba, Brazil and Enrique Peñalosa in Bogota, Colombia, had set examples as mayors by transforming their cities by prioritising pedestrians and buses over cars.
Nobody can deny that cars provide best form of personal mobility in low density areas. But in big cities, mass transit should take precedence and land use pattern needs to be coordinated with transportation planning, as emphasised by the National Transportation Policy. However, the crux lies in coordinated policy implementation, involving the stakeholders, which had been our bugbear in the past. Otherwise, the automobile dream of the upwardly mobile Indian household will forever remain stuck at the traffic lights.
