[sustran] Re: Meanwhile: The rickshaw's last stand

Susan Zielinski susanz at isr.umich.edu
Thu Aug 10 22:16:55 JST 2006


Great list! And how about, "can this mode seamlessly connect
(physically, economically, financially) to all the other modes a person
(or a good) needs to use to get from door to door sustainably and
affordably". In other words does this mode contribute positively /
optimally to the whole system or take away from it.
 
And how about "can this mode be used for moving people and for goods?"
 
And how about "can this mode be easily scaled down as a result of wise
land use / technological infrastructure that allows for reduction of
trip lengths or elimination of trps altogether, i.e. is it mobility
dominated or accessibility based?"
 
Cheers,
Sue

________________________________

From: Eric Britton [mailto:eric.britton at ecoplan.org] 
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2006 8:16 AM
To: Sustran-discuss at jca.apc.org; GlobalSouth at yahoogroups.com
Cc: Susan Zielinski; Jan at Gehl.dk; roadnotes at freenet.de; SCHIPPER at wri.org
Subject: Meanwhile: The rickshaw's last stand 



[If I may sneak a word in here, it strikes me that after all these years
that here are the key issues that need to be sorted out for this or any
other Global South Mobility issue:

 

1.	Does this mode provide useful mobility services? 
2.	Is it affordable and available to poorer people? 
3.	Is it putting an important economic strain on the community? 
4.	Does it provide paid work for people who want to do it? 
5.	If there is stuff that is wrong with it (long list here), and
what point by point can be done to shorten and soften this list? 
6.	Will an appropriately cleaned up version of it contribute to
sustainable development and social justice - and a softer, safer and
better city. 
7.	If the mode is suppressed who wins and who loses?  And what is
their economic bracket? 

 

It always strikes me that those who take up arms against these modes
seem have no deep feeling for what is happening on the street and in
these communities, and take to it an abstract deus ex machina attitude I
am not sure that this is the stuff of good policy and democracy. Now on
the Datta-Ray's version of the story.]

 

 

Meanwhile: The rickshaw's last stand 

Sunanda K. Datta-Ray International Herald Tribune 

 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2006
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2006/08/09/opinion/
edray.php

 

 

CALCUTTA
<http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?query=CALCUTTA&sort=swishrank>
Calcutta's hand-drawn rickshaws - the last in the world - were granted a
reprieve while elsewhere India's government clamped down on blogs and
Internet cafes to prevent cyber attacks. That's India's diversity for
you.

The rickshaw has been dying a long time. The last license was issued in
1945. A bill to abolish the humble vehicle - its name derived from the
Japanese jinrikisha (jin, human; riki, force; sha, vehicle -
"human-powered vehicle") - was introduced last year in the West Bengal
legislature but has been sent to a select committee for further
discussion.

This dithering highlights a major difference between China and India.
Mao abolished rickshaws in one sweep, but Indian politicians, trade
union leaders and nongovernmental organizations have been arguing all
these years that a ban would deprive thousands of poor laborers of their
only means of livelihood. Rickshaws are cheap, safe and clean, unlike
Calcutta buses belching black clouds of diesel fumes.

The opposing argument is that rickshaws violate the dignity of man. The
puller sweats it out in unbearably hot temperatures or wades through
flooded streets for a pittance. It's back- breaking work, and
tuberculosis is an occupational hazard for pullers who often live on the
pavement, scrimping and saving to send a few cents home.

Other forces are also at work. Calcutta had only 6,000 licensed
rickshaws in the 1990s when more than 30,000 plied the streets. If you
looked at the license plates of many vehicles, you saw only squiggles
instead of numbers. If you were trundling along in one - which I
wouldn't for love or money - and your journey lay past a police station,
the rickshaw puller flatly refused to take you.

Illegal rickshaws weren't quite rogue operators. They were owned by
influential citizens, including policemen, who rented them to the
pullers for a few rupees per shift. If caught, it was the poor puller
who was fined. One often saw rows of rickshaws - the ones that didn't
get away - lined up outside police stations.

Hand-pulled at first, then cycle driven, rickshaws have been used at one
time or another in Tokyo, Kyoto, Hong Kong, Dhaka and most Southeast
Asian cities. They first became popular in Japan in the late 19th
century, the early Meiji period, replacing horse- drawn palanquins. Men
were faster and cheaper than horses.

India's rickshaws appeared first in Simla, where British viceroys
escaped the summer heat. The elite had their own vehicles with liveried
pullers, and observed strict protocol. The young Maharani of Kapurthala
was reprimanded for bowling away in her rickshaw from the theater before
a British burra memsahib could summon hers.

Calcutta's flourishing Chinese traders originally used rickshaws to
transport goods; in 1914 they applied for permission to carry passengers
as well. Soon, pulling a rickshaw became a peasant's first job on
migrating to the city. Many stayed with it for life. In Roland Joffe's
1992 film "City of Joy," based on Dominique Lapierre's eponymous novel,
the Indian actor Om Puri, playing a hard-pressed rickshaw puller who
hasn't abandoned hope, encounters an American doctor, played by Patrick
Swayze, fleeing the West with no hope at all.

West Bengal's governing Marxists are moving cautiously. First, several
major Calcutta streets were closed to rickshaw traffic. Then, more than
12,000 rickshaws were seized and destroyed. The policy of not renewing
licenses has brought down the number to 1,800. The West Bengal chief
minister, Buddhdeb Bhattacharjee, promises a total ban next year.

There are many theories about the rickshaw's origins. Three Americans -
a Massachusetts blacksmith, a Baptist minister and a missionary in
Yokohama whose invalid wife needed to get about - have been credited
with the invention. So has an Englishman known as "Public-spirited
Smith." The Japanese say it was the work of three Japanese whom the
Tokyo authorities permitted to build and sell rickshaws, providing one
of them put his stamp on every license to operate a rickshaw.

Indians are not in the picture. But Calcutta is the rickshaw's last
stand; and a monsoon outbreak may have contributed to the last minute
reprieve. Only rickshaws can brave the city's flooded streets in which
cars and buses are regularly stalled.

Sunanda K. Datta-Ray is former Editor of The Statesman newspaper in
Indian.

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20060810/a2fd5b1e/attachment.html


More information about the Sustran-discuss mailing list