[sustran] Re: <j_whitelegg@hotmail.com>]

[Craig Townsend]

I agree wholeheartedly with Prof. Whitelegg, and would urge caution to our 
colleagues in cities of developing Asian nations in following Australia. 
While TS is an excellent measure in the Perth context, in some sense it is 
an "add-on" (along with busways and segregated cycle lanes) to one of the 
most automobile dependent transportation systems in the world. If you tell 
your road engineers to follow the Perth example, they may ask you for a 
blank cheque!

I would also like to add to Dr. Dhingra's comments. Busways may be 
successful in mid-size, mid-density "provincial" cities like Curitiba, 
Nagoya, and Kunming; but there are compelling technical and political 
reasons why Sao Paulo, Tokyo, and Shanghai have high capacity rail systems 
running along main corridors, and why these systems are all being expanded. 
While mobilizing finance for heavy rail systems may be a challenge, as 
India's economy expands, large and high density mega-cities such as Mumbai 
and Kolkata must have rail, bus, and NMT oriented transport systems.

Best wishes,

Craig Townsend


>Dear Sustran discussants,
>
>I've just returned from a 3 week, 6 state lecture tour of Australia.  Travel
>
>Smart is fantastic in Perth and is growing in importance elsewhere.  there
>is a really goood scheme in Brisbane.
>
>However please be cautious about all this.  Australian cities are all
>embarking on massive freeway construction, suburbanistaion, sprwal etc and
>the generation of addtional traffic far outweighs the gains in TS.  The
>authorities in Brisbane are especially gung-ho about billions of dollars of
>new highway capacity and rject totally the idea that new capacity will fuel
>the increase in traffic and short distance car trips.
>
>veruy best wishes
>
>John Whitelegg


>Dear Sustran Friends,
>                         Let's not be misled by HCBS some ideas of which have
>been presented by Dr Geetam Tiwari.
>                 This HCBS discussed by her has been advocated for at least
>since
>1982 in India at a seminar   on Transportation Research at  School of
>Planning &
>Arch New Delhi when a detailed presentation was made including it's design
>and technical aspects. What she is talking about is basically dedicated bus
>system may at grade or elevated one.The dedicated at grade bus lanes were
>recommended by the so-called Comprehensive Transportation study,1993 by W S
>Atkins for the central corridor in Mumbai.Inspite of the fact that WB
>funding/ loan is promised for part of MUTP-II, this has yet not been tried
>as yet.May be the insufficiency of the road width ,which is normally the
>case, could be  the reason here.Any elevated dedicated rail/bus route , in
>the middle of the road,will be most welcome as it is
>cost-effective,particularly the electricity based rail sytem  as it will be
>more sustainable and with much increased capacity and similar cost. One of
>the case study cited by her is of Nagoya which myself andmy colleague, Prof
>KVK Rao  visited  last August.For her information and info' of all of us,
>the key route and guided bus route systems of Nagoya are basically are