[sustran] [World Streets] Op-Ed: Chaotic India has an Urban Edge

[The Editor]

- Dinesh Mohan, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi

“I regard the growth of cities as an evil thing, unfortunate for
mankind and the world, unfortunate for England and certainly
unfortunate for India...It is only when the cities realize the duty of
making an adequate return to the villages for the strength and
sustenance which they derive from them, instead of selfishly exploiting
them, that a healthy and moral relationship between the two will spring
up.”
- M. K. Gandhi

“The unprecedented urban growth taking place in developing countries
reflects the hopes and aspirations of millions of new urbanites. Cities
have enormous potential for improving people’s lives, but inadequate
urban management, often based on inaccurate perceptions and
information, can turn opportunity into disaster.”
- State of World Population 2007, UNFPA.

Here we have two views about cities, almost reconcilable. The first by
a humane visionary, and the second a consensus view of some
professionals in the early 21st century including me. It is difficult
to say who will be right in the “long run”, especially in light of the
assertions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and
their predictions about global warming. But, cities are here to stay,
and I guess Gandhi’s second concern (above) will have to be taken
seriously if IPCC is correct in their assessment.

For many millennia human beings had to limit their greed because excess
consumption demanded more manual labour. This limited their travel, the
size of house they could build, clothes they could own and food they
could eat. This put a limit on the use of natural resources. The
industrial revolution changed all that. Our machines provide us with
ready to cook food, houses, clothes and effortless travel. This has
changed the concept of needs and greed. Our world is now a place where
the rich and powerful can use up huge amounts of energy to transform
natural resources into objects of daily use, travel and ultimately
weapons of mass destruction. The world view has changed into a belief
that there are endless resources and science and technology has
solutions to every emerging problem without constraint. Most of the
responses to IPCC warnings have this belief as their base. But,
Gandhi’s concerns refuse to go away, even if at times I find it very
difficult to be a faithful follower.

Greed overpowering need is even more dominant in the domain of urban
transport. Transportation planning has generally relied on the most
simplistic applications of “technology solves all” paradigm. The heady
experience of speed from late nineteenth century onward has dominated
all thinking. Human beings had not experienced comfortable speeds
greater than 5 km per hour for all of their existence as a species
except in their dreams. The launch of the train, motor car and the
airplane in late 19th and early 20th century changed all that. With no
genetic hunches to go by, we became speed addicts and like any other
addict placed all concerns secondary to the new craving. Scientific
theories and models taught all over the world for a century assumed
that the main objective of a trip was to ensure smooth and unlimited
movement of cars and if there were any “unintended” effects like
deaths, diseases and destruction of living patterns (called
externalities by economists) they could be resolved by greater
application of technology.

International experience

Unending problems of traffic congestion, CO2 production, accidents and
pollution in every single city of the world has forced us to
re-evaluate both our theories and practices. Many urban planning groups
and professionals all over the world are into deep introspection.
Experts like Professor Hermann Knoflacher from Vienna warn us that “Car
traffic is cooling social relationships by heating up the atmosphere!
Traditional transportation engineering is a discipline to maximize
congestion and as a side effect damages the urban fabric and finally
the city. Global warming as a consequence is inevitable.” Voices like
his are not alone or new. Jane Jacobs, the legendary urban planner
explains our current problems “Of course, if you have advisors that
come from the West as advisors you're likely to get such a city. What
American traffic engineer going to the Middle East doesn't want to make
limited access highways and doesn't think in terms of wide streets and
automobile capacities? They victimize American cities this way. Why
won't they victimize foreign cities this way?”

These are not voices of doomsday advocates. Their concern arises from
the fact that most western cities have not been able to solve the
problems that we are grappling with in India. According to the latest
report from the Texas Transportation Institute congestion has increased
in every single urban area in the USA in the past 25 years in spite of
all investments in transit and road construction. Peak time delay in
urban areas increased almost threefold between 1982 and 2007. The
report warns us that “One lesson from more than 20 years of mobility
studies is that congestion relief is not just a matter of highway and
transit agencies building big projects”. USA is not alone in this.
Almost all cities in the world face severe congestion on arterial
roads. During peak times car speeds average 10-15 km/h in cities like
London, Paris, Tokyo, Jakarta, Tehran or Mexico City. The fact is that
rich cities have not been able to reduce car use to very low levels in
spite of extensive public transport infrastructure in place (See Table
1).

All the cities in included in this table (except Singapore) had matured
before the onset of the twentieth century, before cars became dominant.
Their structures were determined by the need for people to walk or take
the tram or the train. Even they have not been able to keep car use to
very low levels. These data show that the car is used for more than 40%
of the trips in most cities even when public transport is available.
Evidence from cities like London, Paris and New York indicates that
public transport use is greater than 60% only in the small inner core
where parking is very limited and roads are perpetually full. In the
rest of the city car use is generally more than 60% as roads are less
crowded and there is easy availability of parking. Detailed studies
from these cities point out that car owners generally shift to public
transport only when no parking is available at the destination and
average car speeds are less than 15 km/h. This empirical evidence
suggests that car use (not ownership) is low only when walking and
bicycling trips also form a significant proportion of all trips in
cities.

It appears that car use is encouraged when high speed entry and exit is
ensured to city centres by building multi-lane wide avenues and
elevated roads through the city. The classic example of the decay of
American cities is given as proof of this phenomenon. Public transport
use also becomes difficult when large colonies or gated communities are
put in place. These neighbourhoods ensure long walking distances to
public transit and discourage use. It has also been observed that when
cities have very noisy roads and elevated metros, richer citizens move
to quieter suburbs requiring long car commutes.

This international experience should give us some important pointers.
All urban transportation policy reports prepared by consultants in
India assume that car use can be reduced just by providing more pubic
transport facilities and assert that if their prescriptions are
followed 70-80% of the trips would then be taken by public transit. The
fact is that no city in the world has accomplished this feat! Further,
car use as a proportion of all trips is so low in India that only very
innovative thinking and practices may reduce growth in personal
transport trips. In the richest cities of India, Mumbai and Delhi,
recent estimates suggest that car trips constitute less than 10% of all
trips. In all other cities this proportion would be lower.
Additionally, the share of public transport is in these two cities is
certainly higher than most of the cities in Europe or North America.
Therefore, it is difficult to imagine how car and motorcycle use can be
contained as we get richer if the international experience is anything
to go by. Obviously, business as usual and copy-cat emulation of rich
cities is not going to help.

. . .

The way forward in the face of global warming

What does sustainable transport mean for us? At a fundamental level it
requires less energy consumption. The choices available are: low
emission vehicles, alternative fuels, fewer trips, shorter trips, more
use of public transport instead of private vehicles, and maximising the
number of walking and bicycle trips. Obviously, all options will have
to be pursued for maximum gain. But, we will have to establish
priorities on our political agenda as the shift is not going to be easy
or painless both socially and technologically. Let us examine each
option briefly here.

At present our policy makers are putting the maximum stress on low
emission vehicles and alternative fuels. This is horribly
short-sighted. For the next twenty years there is no hope of huge
reductions in CO2 primarily through low emission vehicles because the
small gains will be more than offset by the rising number of vehicles
and longer trip lengths. We know that as fuel consumption reduces
people travel more and end up using more fuel. Production of biofuels
has already become controversial internationally because of rising food
prices. In a food and water short India, this is going to be even more
difficult. Most international experts do not see biofuels as a solution
in India. Even vehicles driven on electricity are not CO2 efficient
because thermally produced electricity produces more CO2 (including
transmission losses, etc.) than diesel/petrol powered vehicles. And,
this does not include the negative effects of the huge amounts of fly
ash associated with electric power. Even in public transport an
efficiently run bus system produces about half to two-thirds the CO2
per passenger than a metro rail system. This is not to suggest that we
should not have low emission vehicles, we must, and sooner than later.
But, it will not be the main stay for a sustainable transport system.

Fewer trips, shorter trips, more use of public transport instead of
private vehicles, and maximising the number of walking and bicycle
trips has to be the priority, and it has a lot to do with how we
develop our cities and streets. Now we know that no matter how many
roads we build and how wide they are they always get filled up with
vehicles. The number of vehicles people own is always more than road
space available as evidenced by road conditions in small towns of India
to car and road based cities like Los Angeles in USA. Therefore,
vehicle emissions in a city are directly proportional to the area of
road space in a city. The higher the percentage of road space and more
the number of elevated transportation corridors in a city more the
pollution and CO2 emissions. This also applies to one way and signal
free roads. These roads force people to travel longer distances and
keep their vehicles on roads for longer times. For example, my
neighbour used to get out of his house, turn right on the main road and
go 2 km to his office. Now all the turns have been blocked, he has to
turn left, go 2 km to the next major junction and then make a U-turn to
travel 4 km more to his office. Instead of 2 km, now his daily office
trip is 6 km!

Public transport will only be used by choice if it is safe to walk and
cross the road to take the bus. Provision of very safe roads then
becomes a pre-requisite for promoting public transport and hence
cleaner air. In a hot country the access trip to the bus must be less
than 5-10 minutes away, or less than 500 m and all buses air
conditioned. An air conditioned bus only adds half a rupee per trip
over its life time. This means that no city block can be more than 800
m to 1 km square. At present many of our colonies and gated communities
are larger than that. This discourages public transport use. The short
walk must be safe from crime also. This can be ensured only if there
are shops and street vendors on the road. So mixed land use, and
intensely so, becomes imperative.

How do we ensure fewer and shorter trips? It is the poor who are forced
to have few and short trips, and this should be enabled by policy. Poor
neighbourhoods should be allowed to exist cheek by jowl with rich
colonies and all should be less than a km sq in area. Small shops,
restaurants, hospitals and businesses would then have to be integral
part of residential areas.

If the above conditions are met then you can have dedicated bus and
bicycle lanes on all major roads of a city. A typical arterial road
being two car lanes, one dedicated bus and bicycle lane each, a 2 m
pedestrian path and a 1 m tree line in each direction. Such a road can
move at least 35,000 persons in each direction at peak time. If such
roads exist every 0.8 -1 km all over the city you have adequate
capacity for moving people. Such a road does not have to more than 45 m
wide.

This is the way forward for a sustainable transport option. Our cities
are ready for it. Many of these options are present “illegally”
already. We have to recognise them as solutions and not problems as we
currently do. Unless we re-think our plans for flyovers, wider roads,
gated communities, “slum” removal, and elevated transport corridors,
our cities will turn out to be “warmer” than we can tolerate.

====
For the complete paper as published by the Journal Civil Society -
(Reference follows)

To contact the author:
Dinesh Mohan, PhD - dmohan at cbme.iitd.ernet.in
Professor and Coordinator
Transport Research and Injury Prevention Programme
WHO Collaborating Centre
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Room 808, 7th Floor Main Building
Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016
www.iitd.ac.in/tripp



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Posted By The Editor to World Streets at 6/01/2009 06:41:00 AM
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