[sustran] Re: Anjali's Mail

[Sunny]

A very interesting thing that Anjali has put focus on is the traffic 
plan in B'lore. If seen from the site (Hindu) there is not much explicit 
TDM being implemented but rather dividing the city into zones and 
building "small flyovers" which I feel is not a way to relieve 
congestion. From my understanding of the article from "Hindu" I see that 
effort is being made in increasing the personnel controlling the traffic 
but no effort is done in TDM terms like reducing the lanes for cars, and 
increasing the other modes which can trigger a modal shift and robust 
funding model was specified but the source of funds was not.

 From my observation in Bangkok, which obviously is more congested than 
Bangalore at least at the moment, I feel that any measure taken to make 
the car journey easy will only result in a worsened state for cars. On 
the other hand if the PT and NMT are encouraged it will result in a 
small and high density living with less car usage. I could suggest 
Bangalore to focus more on car restraint policies rather than car safety 
policies.

The other link (Times of India) that Anjali directed in her earlier mail 
talks about pricing. It is true that London and Singapore have 
advantaged out of such schemes but the strategy was implemented in the 
city centres, but implementing it in NH might not result in a ease of 
traffic in the city unless the working people travel on the national 
highway to work. Such pricing schemes could be implemented on the 
congested roads or roads with high car volumes during the peak hours, I 
guess MG and Brigade road are quite high in traffic. This will 
discourage riders to drive but shift to public transport, should it be 
of quality and comfortable both economically and in appeal.

On the whole I would suggest that more preference for the Mass Transit, 
making car driving harder, strict enforcing of speed limits, increasing 
greenery on main roads, and keeping the vulnerable groups in mind while 
planning by not taxing them with pedestrian overpasses will surely ease 
B'lore's malaise.

Sunny

Santhosh Kumar K
Faculty of Environment and Resource Studies,
Mahidol University,
Thailand
sksunny at gmail.com
sunnysanthosh at gmail.com
sustran-discuss-request at list.jca.apc.org wrote:
> {Re: Sujit Patwardhan's email:  "It also means TDM measures so that people
> are encouraged to shift to public transport and made to pay more realistic
> costs if they want to persist using personal vehicles.  As far as I'm aware,
> this is not on the city's agenda at the moment."}
>
> On the topic of TDM for Bangalore, here's a recent article from the Hindu:
> http://www.hindu.com/2006/01/12/stories/2006011222730300.htm
>
> This article gets more specific about the Bangalore Traffic Police's plans
> to introduce some form of congestion pricing by 2010.
> http://floss.sarai.net/newsrack/DisplayNewsItem.do;jsessionid=aritXJapRYQ6?n
> i=10.2.2006%2Fnie.crawler%2Fni250.NewsItems.asp_ID%3DIE120060209231023
>
> And in the Times of India:
> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1441861,curpg-1.cms
>
> This is of course just the tip of the iceberg and who knows what the full
> proposal will play out to be.  But do people think this is workable in
> Bangalore, with autorickshaws, bicycles, and two-wheelers forming a much
> larger proportion of the traffic than cars?
>
> -Anjali
>
>