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.
http://www.hindu.com/op/2008/03/02/stories/2008030252811500.htm
Copyright
© 2008, The Hindu.
