[sustran] An Article on Urban Transport in Nepal

[Sunny]

Hope this article would be interesting.

* Role of Community in Reducing Automobile Dependency for a Sustainable 
Kathmandu*

/ By SUBAS DHAKAL/

Several decades of impromptu urban sprawl within a 667 sq km area of 
Kathmandu Valley has sky-rocketed a demand for driving space. More than 
250,000 registered vehicles (one fifth being automobiles) are now 
estimated to be operating within poorly maintained road infrastructure 
of mere 1200 km. Anticipation of any slump in automobile ownership due 
to the fuel price hike and environmental deterioration surely is 
contradictory to ubiquitous media headlines like 'recurrent traffic 
pandemonium' and 'double digit growth in car sales'. People within the 
valley must often wonder how a once peaceful, walkable & cyclable 
community transformed into a chaotic pile of polluting & honking 
automobiles. An attempt is made here to voice the need of seeking 
sustainable alternatives to the mounting automobile dependency at the 
community level.

Let's begin by revisiting sustainability in the context of 
transportation. Ideally, safe and easy access as well as 
environment-friendly transportation aiming to enhance economic growth 
and facilitate social well-being can be considered sustainable. However, 
diminishing capacity of authorities to manage ever-increasing 
automobiles has made sustainability an ambiguous concept in the valley's 
context. Ironically, concerned authorities seem to be driven by a 
perception that prominent challenge is the helter-skelter traffic in 
bulk of the 'bottlenecked' intersections caused by the narrow roads. 
Such myopic acumen is evident from the haphazard (mis)utilization of 
resources to accommodate more automobiles to an extent that pedestrian 
have simply been stripped away from their rights to walk safely in the 
name of road-widening. Dire encroachment or complete disappearance of 
pavements within busy shopping districts (i.e. portions of NewRoad & 
Dillibazaar area) portrays lack of will to think beyond the 
car-dependent society for whatever reasons. At any cost, such deeds have 
contributed to retreating social well-being because root-cause of 
increasing automobile dependency is not the demand for vehicles itself 
but rather inability to meet the travel needs of commuters in realistic 
terms. Renowned Australian Professor, Peter Newman's years of academic 
research also points to the fact that increasing driving space (building 
new and widening existing roads) have a rather boomerang affect in 
easing congestion as more space becomes available for more automobiles 
and Kathmandu valley is no different!

Increasing population and commerce have transformed once a medium-paced 
valley into a vibrant economy. Growing faction of the working class and 
their mobility needs have amplified automobile dependency in the valley 
where private operators dominate the public transport sector with a 
capricious service. Situation worsened further when the futile political 
leadership (elected and autocratic) with vested interest led to not only 
collapse of the popular and profit-making state run public transport 
system but also promoted imports of gas guzzling giants by providing tax 
breaks to the political and bureaucratic elites. It is hard to believe 
that bulging issue of the public transport is yet to become a priority 
at the policy level and any sustainable intervention, if any, must 
therefore be instigated by the community. Nevertheless, it's much easier 
said than done as community members that are fortunate enough not to own 
automobiles often (mis)perceive that automobile dependency provides them 
with increased mobility independence and save time/money compared to the 
usage of public transport. How valid is such perception? A simple cost 
and benefit analysis on automobile dependency of a reputed travel agency 
director (who owns an entry level compact car with a market price of 1.5 
million) certainly reveals otherwise! Director spends several hours a 
week in unproductive traffic jams and estimates annual automobile 
operating cost for his personal usage (fuel, driver, insurance, state 
tax, minor maintenance, parking fees and so on) to be at least 180,000. 
In a country where average citizen earn less than US $ 240/year, annual 
operating cost of US $ 2,400 for an automobile worth US $ 20,000 is 
simply outrageous .

 From a business perspective, cost of automobile dependency for director 
must translate into everyday benefits of more than 500 rupees/day simply 
to break-even. Thus, director agrees that automobile dependency has 
become a socio-economic reverence for him rather than the actual need. 
Well, even from a sustainability perspective, rising fuel cost, 
environmental/health cost and an opportunity cost associated with the 
hefty upfront investment certainly outweighs the benefits for majority 
of working class community who want to fulfill their mobility needs 
using an automobile. So, what are the pragmatic alternatives for a 
community?

    * Aware those who spend hours in traffic jam as well as thousands on
      the fact that using public transport has additional economic,
      environmental and social advantages compared to the automobile
      dependency.
    * Initiate dialogue with transport operators to maintain timetable
      and routes that link community (ward or cluster of wards) with
      major hubs and promote periodic dissemination of such information
      through accessible medium (newspaper, radio, TV or internet).
    * Find ways to finance much awaited 'walkways' and 'cycle lanes' in
      close collaboration with the planning officials/donor agencies as
      major economic hubs in valley are within a walking or cycling reach.
    * Apply appropriate economic instruments at the community level to
      discourage automobile usage by a) imposing toll charges during the
      peak hours as there are no incentives for not driving automobiles,
      and b) developing a mechanism to flow-back portion of such charges
      to the community so that collected funds can be invested in
      walkways or cycle lanes.

In order to reduce if not reverse the growing trend of automobile 
dependency for a sustainable Kathmandu , community with a collective 
voice must therefore take an eminent role in transforming on-hand 
transport services into efficient/effective means of commuting as well 
as adopting sustainable alternatives when possible!

/(Author is a PhD candidate at Institute of Sustainability and 
Technology Policy, Murdoch University - Australia and can be contacted 
at subasdhakal at gmail.com)/

can also be found at 
http://www.nepalnews.com/contents/2006/englishweekly/spotlight/sep/sep22/national6.php

Sunny
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