[sustran] Re: Sustainable transport and the media (in India, and Bogotá, and...)

[Ashok Sreenivas]

The experience with the media in Pune was equally sad as they were only 
too keen to pounce on all the negatives (and thanks to the shoddy 
planning and implementation of our city authority, they had many 
opportunities), while being extremely reluctant to even understand the 
principles behind BRT. However, rare as they may be, there are occasions 
when the media does present a different angle and here are a couple of 
such articles (the title of the second article is misleading - do read 
it!). I have reproduced the article content below as the mail with just 
the links wasn't going through for some reason.

(PS: All copyrights of the articles belong to Hindustan Times and Sify 
online respectively).

Ashok

*Hindustan Times, 20th Feb 08:*


  Seoul: A city that listened to its own voice

In 2005, Seoul, one of the fastest growing global cities, did something 
our planners would not be able to even dream of. After consultation with 
citizens, it demolished a flyover and replaced it with a green corridor.

Like Mumbai, challenged by huge growth — 10.3 million, or 22 per cent of 
South Korea's population is in Seoul — the city had built flyovers for 
faster transit into the financial district.

But fed up with the road congestion and vehicular pollution, the city 
took a step back. Seoul demolished a 10-km-long, six-lane stretch of 
elevated road going into the city to reclaim the ancient Cheong Gye 
Cheon river, which flowed beneath it.

It then developed a 5.8-km-long green corridor in the heart of this 
business district by involving its residents.

“We often sat through 72-hour meetings locked inside the community hall 
with all stake holders, including shopkeepers who would be affected by 
the demolition of the bridge,” said Dr Gyeng-Chul Kim, senior advisor 
with the Seoul Metropolitan Government. “There was no getting out till 
we reached a resolution.”

Dr Kim, who was in Mumbai on Tuesday for a presentation on 'Seoul's 
challenges for Sustainable City' termed this one of his favourite 
projects. The project took off on the strength of “community 
participation”, encouraged by people who wanted green spaces. “There 
were 4,000-odd meetings with all citizen groups before the project was 
finalised,” he added.

A plan to rehabilitate shopkeepers was chalked out and parts of the old 
river embankment were preserved as demanded by heritage conservationists.

Youngsters and women were the main campaigners for the revamp, which 
took 27 months to complete.

Now, the waterfront hosts music concerts, art exhibitions, sports 
events, giving the city its much-needed open space.

*Sify Online, 20th Feb 08:*
*Small car, big achievement
*V.V. Desai
Wednesday, 20 February , 2008, 11:11

Makers of small cars view their products as a timely and remarkable 
innovation fulfilling the aspirations of India’s rising middle class, 
and as a solution to its urban transport problems.

They are right about the first — but completely wrong about the second. 
Carmakers also err in wishing away the huge costs of congestion and 
environmental impact of small cars. Public discourse needs to highlight 
these costs and demand urgent introduction of public policies fo r their 
moderation.

The first small car off the block — the Nano — has won well-deserved 
accolades from all. Some regard it as an important milestone for the 
auto industry, in addition to being a very helpful product for the 
Indian consumer.

The Nano and its determined competitors promise to supply 3-4 million 
cars annually from as early as 2013, just five short years from now. 
Contrary to the car-makers’ assertions, the majority of these cars will 
end up in India’s metros and fast-growing cities such as Ahmedabad, 
Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, and so on.

*Not the solution *

Experience around the world shows that cars, small or large, are no 
longer the solution but a problem in urban transport. Cars use several 
times more road and parking space, as well as fuel per passenger km than 
public transport; they also spew far greater quantities of pollutants 
and gases.

Globally, therefore, the bulk (60-90 per cent) of urban transport is 
provided by public transport systems (like in Jakarta, London, Seoul, 
Singapore, Tokyo), and cars play a minor role despite high car ownership 
in many countries. Low ownership and poor infrastructure in India will 
further limit the contribution of cars in urban transport to be marginal 
at best; the share of cars in transport in Mumbai and Delhi is estimated 
to be just about 10 per cent.

Even such meagre additions to the car population will be accompanied by 
huge penalties in the form of aggravated congestion and associated 
environmental and other impacts. Road networks in the urban areas have 
miserably lagged behind the multi-fold rise in car population during the 
past 15 years. Roads are heavily congested and average car speeds have 
fallen to about 10-12 km/hour during peak hours in Mumbai, New Delhi and 
several other cities. The addition of several million small cars 
annually will worsen the congestion and push average speeds down to 5 
km-10 km/hour.

*The cost of smoke *

Traffic congestion imposes heavy costs on the economy, estimated in some 
countries to be around 3-6 per cent of GDP. Congestion causes longer 
travel times and wastes several million person-hours. The more serious 
costs of congestion, however, come in the form of fuel wastage and 
increased air pollution and emissions.

World Bank studies found that as average speeds start to go below 40 
km/hr, fuel consumption begins to rise sharply, especially at speeds 
below 20 km/hr. At an average speed of 10 km/hr and 5 km/hr, consumption 
is more than four and six times that consumed at 40 km/hr. Corresponding 
increases also take place in particulates discharged and greenhouse 
gases emitted.

Claims of high fuel-efficiency, high environmental standards and low 
negative impact for small cars are based on tests conducted under 
“standardised” driving conditions. Unfortunately “standardised” 
conditions have little relevance to ground realities. The environmental 
performance claimed for small cars, therefore, needs to be validated at 
very low speeds of 5km-10 km/hr — the speeds they are likely to be 
driven at in urban centres.

*What’s good for one, isn’t for all *

Enhancing traffic capacity by building new roads, elevated expressways, 
flyovers, high-rise parking structures etc. is very expensive and 
time-consuming — and provides only temporary relief. As soon as such 
facilities become available, they are overwhelmed by a flood of new 
cars, especially in such newly emerging economies as China and India.

While the rapid spread of car ownership is unavoidable, policy-makers 
need to realise that cars are an impractical and wasteful mode of 
transport in urban areas from the viewpoint of the public-at-large, 
given the costs mentioned above. The answer lies in urgent development 
of public transport.

The only way to control the use of cars for personal transportation is 
to minimise their excessive claim on urban road space at the cost of 
public transport. Restraints on car use have been applied in several 
cities around the world for a number of years now, and have been found 
to be effective in improving traffic flow and air quality.

Policy measures include regulations to control access to certain areas 
during designated hours and/or days of the week, charges for congestion, 
registration and parking fees that reflect the true costs of providing 
infrastructure and space for driving and parking cars, and taxes to 
defray the environmental and public health costs attributable to car use.

*Perverse incentives *

Substantial experience and assessments are now available on the impact 
of measures for restraining car use in urban areas. These show that such 
restraint is critical in framing effective urban transport policies. It 
is also found that the costs to society and economy of driving cars far 
exceed taxes and fees collected from car-owners by public authorities — 
hence, the need to urgently restructure fiscal policies.

A World Bank study found that the current policies of Central and State 
governments in India have the perverse effect of subsidising private car 
use while heavily penalising public transport! Such perversity is 
aggravated by progressive lowering of excise duties on small cars in 
successive Budgets — a point that the Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, 
would do well to keep in mind.

The justification that such lowering of duties is necessary to build a 
platform for a large domestic market and thus win global markets is 
simply untenable. Japan and Korea emerged as global car exporters in the 
1960s and 1970s respectively, despite modest domestic car markets.

*From bad to worse *

Policy-makers must seriously re-consider the premise that the worsening 
transport situation in urban India can be addressed by the uncontrolled 
addition of privately owned cars. Far from resolving the urban transport 
problem, they will actually compound it and cause huge damage to the 
economy (traffic delays and loss of productivity) and the environment.

The challenge of putting in place a programme for the rapid development 
of public transport, coupled with restraints on car use in urban areas, 
can be ignored only at the country’s own peril.