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

[Lee Schipper]

And as Ashok knows. I said in front of the Mayor, Commissioner, etc in Pune in March or 2oo6 ,
"If you make 25% of the area of your city roads, like Los Angeles, you don't solve your transport problmes"
 
and what did the HT/Mahrastra write?
 
"DR  Schipper Recommended that Pune devote 25% of its area to roads"
 
Is there a lesson here?
Lee Schipper
EMBARQ, the WRI Center for Sustainable Transport
www.embarq.wri.org
>From Oct 1, Visiting Scholar, 
UC Transportation Center
UC Berkeley, CA 
www.uctc.net
510 642 6889
202 262 7476
Lee Schipper
EMBARQ, the WRI Center for Sustainable Transport
www.embarq.wri.org
>From Oct 1, Visiting Scholar, 
UC Transportation Center
UC Berkeley, CA 
www.uctc.net
510 642 6889
202 262 7476

________________________________

From: sustran-discuss-bounces+schipper=wri.org at list.jca.apc.org on behalf of Ashok Sreenivas
Sent: Wed 2/20/2008 7:33 PM
To: sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org
Subject: [sustran] Re: Sustainable transport and the media (in India, and Bogotá, and...)



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.

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