[sustran] Re: World Bank supporting motorization at the cost of environment and pedestrian safety

ANANT ganant at vsnl.com
Sat Feb 23 15:33:40 JST 2002


The malady that has struck Bombay now, earlier visited upon Madras.

First, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation said it had no money to run
additional bus services. "Automobilisation" resulted, as people adopted
whatever means of transport they could, including hackney carriages called
"fish carts" to meet the transport demand in a growing economy.

Then the urban managers said the roads had simply become too small for the
"growth" in vehicle population. "Off with the pavements" they said. Why
should the pavements go ? "Because people don't use them" said the Mayor,
M.K.Stalin. Unanswered question: why don't people use them ? Because they
are taken over by encroachers, forcing people to walk on the road.

So, now it is no pavements on many roads. Now, if you have to get from point
A to B, you cannot walk, even if the distance is be covered on foot. You
must take a vehicle or be ready to be knocked down !  And thus... more
vehicles, more trips, more pollution !!

What urban planning ! Pedestrians, unite. You have nothing to lose because
you don't have anything anyway !!

G.Ananthakrishnan, City Editor
The Hindu, 859-860, Anna Salai
Chennai, India
Tel: + 91 44 8594373
Mobile + 91 98410 17175
Fax: + 91 44 8415325

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sustran-discuss at jca.ax.apc.org
[mailto:owner-sustran-discuss at jca.ax.apc.org]On Behalf Of kisan mehta
Sent: 23 February 2002 11:48
To: sustran-discuss
Cc: saksena; Harshad Kamdar; vinita salvi; Sameer Akbar; MMRDA
Subject: [sustran] World Bank supporting motorization at the cost of
environment and pedestrian safety

Dear Sustran Colleagues,

The following article appeared  in the Times of India,
Mumbai edition of 19 Feb 2002 exposes the preference
of the authorities for more carriageways by removing or reducing pavements.
The World Bank is now busy
extending loan to the Mumbai authorities for the MUTP
which includes constructing of pavementless six lane carriageways in
predominantly residential areas. One
road abuts Powai Lake, a water source for Mumbai.  After admitting  that
Mumbai has very high SPM
levels and many of the roads of Mumbai do not have
pavements the authorities with the World Bank
backing have rejected outright a citizen proposal to
allocate Rs 2 billion out of estimated cost of Rs 60
billion for constructing  pavements.  The Bank supports motorisation through
road construction while paying lip
service to environment protection and citizen
convenience.
**********************
A city is not civilised until it offers freedom to walk about,
says architect
By Vidyadhar Date Times News Network

The way some people see it, the local residents opposition
to the planned Pedder Road flyover is hindering Mumbai's
traffic flow.   That is not quite true, said Austrian architect,
Peter Schreibmayer, who was in Mumbai recently.  He
said the trend around Europe is not only to halt
construction of flyovers, but to actually reduce width of
existing roads to discourage the flow of vehicular traffic.

The result is that European cities and towns are far more
livable than cities in the automobile-dominated U.S., he
said.  The width of roads is being reduced in various ways, including
creating gardens on some portions.  More
streets are completely closed to cars.  This has greatly enhanced civic
life.  About one-third of journeys in
European cities are made on foot.  Cities are not civilised
until there is freedom to walk about, said Mr Schreibmayer,
who was in Mumbai to deliver the keynote address at a conference on humane
habitat.

According to former minister of state for urban development
and resident of Pedder Road for nearly 40 years,  B.A.
Desai the entire area from Haji Ali to Colaba should not tampered with
because it has some of the finest buildings
in the country, he said.  He claimed that with the Bandra-Nariman Point
freeway coming up, there would be little
need for the Pedder Road flyover.  What the area really
needs is low-cost solutions, like proper footpaths and a
more humane traffic management, said President of the
Pedder Road Residents Association and former
chairperson of the Mumbai Local History Society, Veena Singhal.

Several people in the area have been injured in the last
few years because of lack of proper footpaths and
inadequate traffic management.  Nalanda Building alone
has seen two of its senior citizens, Pushpa  Vakil, 57
and H. L. Dhruv, 68, die in road accidents.  A college
student Punit Kumar, was lucky to survive an injury
some time ago.  But Ramnik Shah, a resident in the neighbouring  Jeweller
Apartment, was killed in another
incident.

The municipal corporation's callousness towards
pedestrians is inexcusable, environmentalist
Kisan Mehta pointed out to a World Bank team during
its recent visit to consider the Mumbai Urban Transport
Project (MUTP).

"It is hazardous to cross Pedder Road because very
often signals are switched off, resulting in an endless
flow of traffic," said president of Nalanda Cooperative
Housing Society Amul Shah.  During peak hours,
pedestrians are confronted  by vehicles coming from
the wrong side as an additional lane is opened to
vehicular traffic.

The authorities should much rather seek low-cost,
people-friendly solutions like improving public transport,
said Ramesh Singhal, a company executive. Mr Singhal,
who worked for several years in the U.K. recalled that
even senior executives travelled to work by underground railway.  They left
their cars some distance away and
used public transport to reach their offices.

The municipal corporation is using double standards.  It
is not performing its basic task of constructing footpaths
and is even destroying existing ones.  Yet, it wants to
acquire land to widen roads for cars, complained Mr
Mehta.  The latest move is to acquire a stretch  of  land  belonging to St
Stanislaus School in Bandra.  This has
met with strong opposition from citizens.

******************
Priya Salvi and Kisan Mehta




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