[sustran] BRT - Reservations on the road: pause, reflect & learn

[arul rathinam]

Reservations on the road: pause, reflect & learn 

The Hindu 06.05.2008

http://www.hindu.com/2008/05/06/stories/2008050654720800.htm

Tathagata Chatterji

To become successful, the BRT or any other transit system needs to grow beyond mere traffic engineering. Socio-cultural parameters need to be built in, right from the conceptualisation stage.

The experimental Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in Delhi, which reserves a portion of the road space to facilitate fast movement of high capacity buses and prioritises public transport over private, has been facing a barrage of vitriolic media criticism ever since its inception. A wary Union Urban Development Ministry has now ordered a review of the Rs.2,883-crore BRT plan for eight other cities — Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Indore, Jaipur, Pune, Rajkot, Visakhapatnam and Vi jayawada. Apart from this, Chennai is also planning a BRT under a separate funding pattern. 

The controversy has put a question mark over the future of mobility in urban India. But before we apply permanent brakes — under political and media pressure — on a system which has succeeded in several big cities across the world, we need to pause, reflect and learn the appropriate lessons. 

Cities across India are now choked with cars. Between 1981 and 2001, on an average, the population of the six metro cities multiplied by 1.8 times but the number of vehicles increased by over 6 times. With 1,396 cars per square kilometre, Chennai today has a higher car density than the vastly more affluent Berlin. The crisis is sure to escalate further as the new set of mini-cars hits the roads in the near future. 

Cars occupy 75 per cent of road space but are used by less than 15 per cent of the populace even in the most affluent Indian cities. In contrast, buses occupy a mere 8 per cent of the road area but are used by almost 20 to 60 per cent of the people. Pedestrians and cyclists constitute an overwhelming 40 to 75 per cent of commuters but are completely marginalised in our planning system as a major part of budget allocations is consumed for road widening or flyover building, which primarily benefit cars and two wheelers. 

Compare this with New York, London, Paris or Singapore — the high temples of international finance. These are all cities where people get around on foot, by cab or via mass transit. Urban policies discourage private cars. With oil prices consistently hovering above $100 a barrel and the threats of global warming looming large, there is a clear need to reprioritise our urban transportation policy in favour of public transit. 

Among the major urban mass transit options, the road-based bus rapids are much more economical in terms of capital cost and offer greater operational flexibility compared to rail based systems like Metro or Light Rail Transit (LRT). For the cost of one km of a metro system, about 8 to 10 km of LRT or a 30-50 km modern bus network can be developed. In terms of day-to-day running costs and ability to move large numbers of people at high speed, dedicated bus transits enjoy certain advantages over LRT systems. 

However, electric powered rail based systems are environmentally more sustainable — when running in full capacity — and have been better able to attract motorists as many stations offer park and ride facility. They also enjoy a better public image. In India, the Delhi Metro has emerged as a benchmark of efficiency in public service, even though running under huge state subsidy. 

It is of course wrong to see different mass transit options in an ‘either-or’ context, as great cities frequently have a combination of all, most often with integrated ticketing and connection at key junctions for seamless transfer. The bus rapids, light rails and tramways frequently act as feeders to the metro system. 

The appropriateness of the transit alternative depends on ridership pattern and economic profile of the area. Another important factor in integrated planning is scalability. That is, a particular region may start with BRT, with an eventual plan of changing over to LRT or full-fledged metro, at a future date, as demand increases. 

Rede Integrada de Transporte, the world’s first bus rapid transit, was pioneered in 1974 in the Brazilian industrial city of Curitiba. Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Columbia’s capital, Bogotá, started the famed Transmileno BRT in 2001 as part of his visionary concept of a more inclusive urban space. He sought to give the city back to the people through an integrated policy for pedestrian and cycle friendly streets and affordable mass transit. In doing so, of course, he had to overcome extreme political hostility.

The Transmileno is now universally acknowledged as the most advanced BRT system, and operates almost like a surface metro — even with grade separation in stretches. It has attractive stations with wheelchair access, bicycle parking and air conditioned low floor buses. The central control room monitors bus movements, round the clock, through GPS and synchronises traffic lights. 

The success of Bogotá has inspired other bus rapids such as the Los Angles Orange Line, Ottawa Transitway, and Adelaide O-bahn. Several Chinese cities are going big on BRT and the Beijing one will be opened before the Olympics. Of course, success in other countries does not guarantee the success of BRT in India, as we have a unique, heterogeneous traffic pattern. In most of our cities, overspeeding cars, buses, tempos, zigzagging bikers, slow push carts and jay walking pedestrians all jostle for road space with little regard for road discipline. On the other hand, adverse feedback from a small stretch in South Delhi does not mean that BRT cannot succeed elsewhere in India, for each city has certain inherent internal characteristics. 

Chennai, Mumbai or Kolkata have a much more compact urban form, a longer tradition of public transit and better road discipline than Delhi. The Delhi NCR has a sprawling spatial pattern, great distances and more cars than the combined figure of the other three metros. 

Although appropriate at a broad conceptual level, the BRT implementation in Delhi has suffered due to poor detailing and lack of interdisciplinary coordination amongst the stakeholder agencies. 

Undoubtedly, cars and two wheelers offer the most comfortable door-to-door journey, particularly for distances up to 15-20 km. Since the primary objective of the BRT is to reduce road congestion, all successful systems in the world offer high-quality vehicles that are clean, easy to board, and comfortable to ride. 

Lack of synchronisation 

But what the Delhi BRT has rolled out are the same accident prone, rickety tin-pot Blueline buses charging down the road in competitive frenzy. The high capacity low floor buses originally proposed and ordered for the segment have been grossly inadequate in numbers. Obviously, the bus procurement plan and BRT implementation were not synchronised. 
The Delhi Metro, in contrast, from the very beginning, had caught the public imagination, with its spic and span image, punctuality and attention to quality. Urban India is no longer willing to accept something second-rate and obsolete. 

Pedestrians, who should normally have first claim on the road in any mature city, have become the missing dimension in our transportation policy. Be it the BRT or any of the newly opened flyovers which criss-cross our cities today, the case is the same: Desperate women trying to jump over the medians or old men running through the maze of traffic to cross the road are sights common enough in India. 

Thus the BRT has bus stops along the central verge, but without any quick crossover. In our country, pedestrian crossovers get built only after a few fatalities — as an afterthought. Elevated foot over bridges with long stair climbs are of course a cruel joke on the disabled and the aged. But then who cares? 

To become successful, the BRT or any other transit system needs to grow beyond mere traffic engineering. Socio-cultural parameters need to be built in, right from the conceptualisation stage. The issues of equity and social justice in the urban physical realm are seldom explored. We need to make our urban transportation policies more inclusive, equitable and sustainable. But the crux of the challenge lies in co-ordinated policy implementation. Failing this, the future of mobility in urban India will forever remain stuck in a jam. 

(The author is a Delhi-based architect and urban planner.) 

http://www.hindu.com/2008/05/06/stories/2008050654720800.htm



      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and 
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ