From shovan1209 at yahoo.com Sat Oct 14 02:26:09 2017 From: shovan1209 at yahoo.com (Syed Saiful Alam) Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2017 17:26:09 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [sustran] Learn about the harm that ADB is doing to the Bangladeshi environment References: <1641571115.1348980.1507915569935.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1641571115.1348980.1507915569935@mail.yahoo.com> Protest ADB?s harmful actions on canals Learn about the harm that ADB is doing to the Bangladeshi environment I have written the following letter to ADB to draw their attention to the harm they have done in a recent project that was supposed to ?rehabilitate? canals in midsized Bangladeshi cities. Instead, they have succeeded in destroying various canals and worsening the flooding situation as well as harming water transport and destroying fish and other wildlife. 12 October 2017 To Whom It May Concern: I am writing to express a grievance regarding ADB?s project ?Brahmanbaria Town Khal (Canal)? which intended to ?develop? canals in mid-sized Bangladeshi cities. The project set forth admirable goals including developing walking paths along the canals. However, the project was by no means positive in reality; in fact, it has caused extreme harm to the environment and to the affected human populations. Under the project, ADB funded concrete surfacing of existing canals. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of environmental issues is aware that natural canals support fish and other life, while concrete surfaces kill them. Killing the fish in a canal results in a whole chain of wildlife devastation, as birds eat the fish, other animals eat the birds, and so on. Following this short-sighted and wrong-minded project, water-logging actually increased rather than declining. ADB officials are surely aware of the existence of climate change and the fact that flooding in Bangladesh will continue to worsen. To conduct a project that contributes to flooding rather than alleviates it is extraordinarily harmful. To give an example of the severe harm caused, let me mention just one example: the canal that cuts through the center of Brahmanbaria. The canal has been completely destroyed as a result of ADB?s actions. The canal was previously used for water transport; this is no longer possible. The wildlife that lived in the canal has all died. The canal, in sum, has been destroyed. At the time of announcing the project, we protested due to the likely harm that would result. Our predictions came true and people throughout the region are suffering as a result. I am requesting that ADB conduct a formal review of this project, including collecting opinions from a range of stakeholders. I would further request that ADB review its decision about the so-called ?development? of canals in order to avoid any such environmental catastrophes in future. I look forward to your response on this matter. Syed Saiful AlamEnvironmental Activist?Phone +880155244281458/1, 1st Lane Kalabagan? Dhaka.? Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android From yanivbin at gmail.com Wed Oct 25 02:19:08 2017 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2017 22:49:08 +0530 Subject: [sustran] Was the Delhi Metro ever for the people? Message-ID: http://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/was-the-delhi-metro-ever-for-the-people/story-YGsGBrfd0VzPI1Ycyi5u7M.html Was the Delhi Metro ever for the people?Each fare hike will make the Delhi Metro less ?for the people?, even if there will always be a Metro-riding public. But, the less subsidised it is the more ?anti-people? it will become OPINION Updated: Oct 23, 2017 13:01 IST [image: Rashmi Sadana] Rashmi Sadana [image: One could argue that the Metro project was always inherently ?anti-people?; it was a massive, top-down infrastructure laid onto the city with great care in terms of its engineering and ?world-class? production values, but less care in terms of its sustainability and coordination with the city itself] One could argue that the Metro project was always inherently ?anti-people?; it was a massive, top-down infrastructure laid onto the city with great care in terms of its engineering and ?world-class? production values, but less care in terms of its sustainability and coordination with the city itself(Vipin Kumar/HT) - - - - - - - The recent and inevitable Delhi Metro fare hike raises a number of issues, though none of them are new. For those of us who use it, the way we traverse and even think about the city will never be the same. There is no going back now, but the question the fare hike raises is how to go forward? >From the start, researchers at the TRIPP Institute at IIT Delhi showed through precise economic modelling and comparative public transport analysis that the Delhi Metro would not be a sustainable form of transport compared to, say, investing big time in the city?s bus infrastructure. ?Big time? does not mean a six-kilometre stretch of bus rapid transit (BRT), but rather an integrated system of transport that both expands and greatly improves what was there before. One could argue that the Metro project was always inherently ?anti-people?; it was a massive, top-down infrastructure laid onto the city with great care in terms of its engineering and ?world-class? production values, but less care in terms of its sustainability and coordination with the city itself. It was a largely Japanese-funded, diplomat-negotiated, transnational global production. In fact, ?the people? were mostly not consulted, and people in the city?s other urban and transport agencies most often didn?t speak to one another, and certainly didn?t work together when it came to Metro planning. Many argued this was the secret to the DMRC?s success. Now, in addition to ?the people?, with the arrival of the Metro, we have a new idea of ?the public?. This Metro-riding public has demands of its own, as it should. Political parties naturally will want to speak to and for this public, however accurately or inaccurately. Most people will let them; but it is this public that will have to assert its claim on the Metro and the city for anything to change, and for the future of the Metro system to be as they would like it ? efficiently and safely run, affordable, integrated, maybe even beautiful. This will be the challenge and will require the city?s transport and environment-related NGOs and urban research organisations to be at the table ? whether with politicians or the DMRC, but ideally both. The Delhi Metro has become a lifeline for so many in the National Capital Region ? across income-levels and geographical boundaries. But ?lifeline? carries with it a requirement of sustainability. The Delhi Metro, at least compared to malls and other world-class spaces in the city, is more ?of the people? since it is not a space of consumption but rather offers a range of experiences to more kinds of people than most other urban projects. I?m not arguing for or against this fare hike; I?m sure there has to be one, and I?m sure this one won?t be the last. It?s also true that each fare hike will make the Delhi Metro less ?for the people?, even if there will always be a Metro-riding public. The Metro will also likely never be sustainable, even if the DMRC increases its property and other commercial schemes. Metro systems are extremely expensive to run and maintain, and the less subsidised they are (or become) the more ?anti-people? they will also become. But this was also engrained in the very idea of the Metro from the beginning; how could it be otherwise? In the course of my research on the Delhi Metro, I have talked to hundreds of Metro riders, and for at least two-thirds of them affordability is a key issue in their decision to take the Metro. What makes the Metro a lifeline is precisely its ability to serve the majority of city-dwellers. If not, the very premise of the Metro disappears. This raises a larger issue that goes beyond transport. Who does government represent ? visible publics or people of all stripes and income-levels? More dramatically, who lives and who does not? This contradiction is precisely what becoming ?world-class? entails. To have those amenities that put Delhi on par with cities around the world; to have people experience the awesome compression of time and space that Metro-riding affords; and yet to have a city that becomes ever more exclusive for an expanding, elevated public. *Rashmi Sadana teaches at George Mason University* *The views expressed are personal* From yanivbin at gmail.com Thu Oct 26 00:41:03 2017 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2017 21:11:03 +0530 Subject: [sustran] =?utf-8?Q?Is_Bengaluru=E2=80=99s_bus_system_an_intellig?= =?utf-8?Q?ence_failure=3F?= Message-ID: http://indiaclimatedialogue.net/2017/09/27/bengalurus-bus-system-intelligence-failure/ Is Bengaluru?s bus system an intelligence failure?Darryl D'Monte , 27.09.17 *Although Bengaluru?s Intelligent Transport System for buses has been nominated for the prestigious C40 Cities award for sustainable transportation, the reality on the ground leaves much to be desired* [image: An electric bus operated by Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (Photo by Ramesh NG)] An electric bus operated by Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (Photo by Ramesh NG) Somewhat surprisingly, Bengaluru?s Intelligent Transport System (ITS ) for buses ? the first of its kind in India ? has been shortlisted with four other cities worldwide in the sustainable transportation category by the C40 Cities Bloomberg Philanthropies Awards in New York for climate-related initiatives. The city has been proverbially bogged down by traffic snarls and lack of public transport, including taxis and auto rickshaws, and there have been few visible signs of an improvement in the situation. Nagendra, chief systems manager in the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), said work on the project had started in 2015 and was officially launched in May 2016. Shiva Subramaniam, a Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) planner working on an ITS master plan with the Japanese International Cooperation Agency for Bengaluru and Mysore, disagrees. ?Nothing officially has started as of now,? he told indiaclimatedialogue.net *.* C40 is a network of the world?s megacities committed to addressing climate change. In all, 25 cities across the world are competing for the C40 awards for four other categories ? building energy efficiency and clean energy; reducing waste; climate action plans; and adaptation plans and programmes. The organisers stress the role of big cities with over 5 million people in tackling climate change. ?Nearly half of the finalist projects are in American cities, and they will help ensure that the US reaches our Paris Agreement goal, no matter what happens in Washington,? UN Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change and C40 Board President, Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire and philanthropist former Mayor of New York for 13 years, said in a statement . ?Cities are leading the way on every continent, and the C40 Awards are a chance to highlight great ideas and help them spread.? *First initiative* For the Bengaluru ITS, the citation notes that as the first such initiative in India, it faced ?a massive institutional change with no direct examples to point to required that the programme be clear, comprehensive, and targeted at a wide range of audiences. Gaining public approval was a central challenge for this programme, especially given that the BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation ) is made up of 36,000 employees who are all directly impacted by the project.? ?A key intervention by cities is to make public transport more attractive and easier to use, thereby decreasing the number of times an individual chooses to travel by car,? Simon Kjaer Hansen, C40 Director of Regions in Copenhagen, told indiaclimatedialogue.net . ?An ITS system which integrates buses and creates a more certain, streamlined service improves the incentives for citizens to use public transport.? BMTC says that GPS-based Vehicle Tracking Units have been installed in 6,400 buses. This provides real-time tracking and monitoring of buses, collection of operational data and generation of Management Information System (MIS) reports and two-way voice communication between the bus and the control centre. The mobile app shows the estimated time of arrival for over 6,000 buses in real time, which encourages more people to use this energy-efficient mode of public transport. *Looks good in theory* In theory, this makes a world of difference to a bus service, since commuters know when a bus will arrive and how long it will take to reach its destination. Due to congestion on the roads caused by four- and two-wheelers, buses are delayed indefinitely, which prompts commuters to switch to Metros, taxi aggregators and auto-rickshaws, the last two of which only add to traffic jams and consume fossil fuels. Switching to buses will reduce emissions otherwise generated by cars, two-wheelers and rickshaws. However, few are even aware that such an IT-enabled system exists in Bengaluru, which is known as India?s Silicon Valley. Many activists are highly critical of the project. Muralidhar Rao, who blogs on *praja.in *, said: ?It has been launched eight times and is not functioning after having spent so much money.? ?There is no accountability on how the INR 700 million (USD 10.7 million) budget has been spent,? Sridhar Pabbisetty, CEO of Namma Bengaluru Foundation, a local non-profit, told indiaclimatedialogue.net . ?If you to the (Google) Play store, you will find three or four BMTC apps for tracking the movement of buses.? ?With Application Programming Interface (API) technology, BMTC is in a position to share data like the location of a bus online and enable a commuter to adopt this technology. This isn?t proprietary data but not being made public, so ITS remains an enigma,? Pabbisetty said. ?As someone in touch with citizens? movements and a public transport user, I have tried to install the app, which takes 10 minutes, and is an ?almost there, never there? technology.? *Many challenges* Ekroop Caur, former Managing Director of BMTC who has since been transferred, confirmed that ITS had faced a lot of challenges not just externally but also internally. She cited that the project had met a ?lot of resistance from within the organisation.? ITS relies on electronic data and is widely used in the developed world. Bengaluru is an obvious choice because it is home to thousands of techies. There are three major components: a Vehicle Tracking System, a Passenger Information System, and an Electronic Ticketing System. The BMTC has distributed over 10,000 electronic ticketing machines, fixed 6,400+ vehicle tracking units, and installed a new Command and Control Centre. ?The bus system is more predictable, user-friendly, and streamlined,? says the C40 citation. ?Moving toward CO2 reduction, the BMTC is looking to transition to a fleet of entirely electric buses?it has a fleet of around 6,400 buses clocking 858,000 miles every day. At this capacity, the system reduces total CO2 emissions by 154.8 tonnes per day and annual emissions associated with the fleet by 56,670 tonnes.? The organisers believe that the ITS can be replicated elsewhere in India. It reduces fuel costs even as ridership increases. By making buses more easily accessible, the BMTC ?has the potential to change the culture of public transportation in Bangalore,? the citation says. *Fixing poor connectivity* However, Rao holds BMTC?s technical advisers, who include foreign and Indian companies and agencies, responsible for the non-functioning of Bengaluru?s ITS. When S.M. Krishna was Chief Minister of Karnataka, he drafted Rao as co-chair of a Commuter Comfort Task Force. ?Comfort wasn?t the issue, poor connectivity was,? he told indiaclimatedialgue.net . ?There are 3,000 routes which can be reduced to 33 ?north, south, east, west and diagonally. It was only partially adopted.? In 2007, he helped BMTC start the YI (Kannada for *Yelli Iddira*, or Where are you?) service, which would send a text message for the location of a bus, but it proved short-lived. Before the launch of the ITS last May, he blogged: ?BMTC, now on the threshold of launching its ITS, could have perfected the same model for its buses 10 years ago. It discontinued a similar, but SMS-based, bus-tracking service called YI.? ?The service would have cost BMTC a few lakhs of rupees. Years after YI was dumped, a tie-up was in the offing for a similar project, but at an estimated cost of INR 69 crore (INR 690 million). This too did not materialise. The ITS project now being prepared for a launch costs even more. Couldn?t this cost escalation have been avoided had the transport corporation continued and upgraded YI?? Subsequently, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation, deciding that YI was not good enough, spent something like INR 150 million to put together its ITS in Mysore. It hasn?t been talked about as a model to follow even by BMTC, which tied up with Trimax IT Infrastructure & Services Ltd in Mumbai for the deal worth INR 690 million. The cost has gone up to INR 790 million over five years and Rao says, ?We don?t know where it?ll end ultimately, if it?ll end at all.? *Nuanced view* However, Ashwin Mahesh, CEO of Mapunity, a social technology company and close informal advisor to BMTC, takes a more nuanced view ?almost as an insider?. ?ITS wasn?t conceived of very strongly till some four years ago. It very much depends on people at the helm, who get transferred,? he told indiaclimatedialogue.net . ?What ITS has achieved is to track each bus and traveller by destination and what each passenger is doing. Once ITS is digitised, it makes it harder for operators to cheat. It has forced departments to go digital and this can tell the undertaking which routes to ply on. It has forced compliance and depot staff is incentivised with a share of revenue for efficiency.? He believes that ITS will not benefit people as much as a reform of the bus system. More than ITS, the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS), or reserved lanes for buses on arterial roads, could prove that buses are the cheapest and most energy-efficient mode of urban transport. Before the ill-fated first such system was introduced in Delhi in 2009, its mentors in Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT-D ) reported that an estimated 60% of motorised commuting trips were made by mass transit, the majority being by bus. But buses represented less than 1% of the total motorised vehicles and cars and two-wheelers represented 90%. According to the UN Environment Programme, a Metro costs INR 1.5 billion to build each km, a BRTS costs only INR 100 million a km. With the current emphasis on smart cities, the demand for ITS is expected to grow. A Google search reveals 2.8 million entries. There have been several reports on its application in India by multilateral, foreign and Indian agencies and institutions like IITs. Global giants like IBM and CISCO are the main players for smart cities, with many other agencies in tow.