[sustran] Can Cheaper Cars Move Faster?

[Sujit Patwardhan]

5 March 2006


Dear All,
Thought you may like to read this excellent 
article. Why can't we get stories researched in 
this manner instead of the ones merely 
"reporting" inauguration of every new flyover?
--
Sujit

Sujit Patwardhan
PARISAR
"Yamuna", ICS Colony,
Ganeshkhind Road,
Pune 411007
India






The Hindu

Date:04/03/2006 URL: 
http://www.thehindu.com/2006/03/04/stories/2006030405271100.htm

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<http://www.thehindu.com/2006/03/04/05hdline.htm>Opinion - News Analysis

Can cheaper cars move faster?

G. Ananthakrishnan

The car may appear to be more affordable now. 
However, restrictions on its use such as 
congestion charging, costlier parking, and 
reduced right of way in favour of buses, 
pedestrians, and cyclists may be inevitable.




(Photo not included due to limitation on attachments)
GRIDLOCKED: Bangalore is one of the cities worst 
affected by the explosion in the number of vehicles on the road.

THERE HAS never been a better time to buy a car 
it would appear after the Union budget slashed 
excise duty. The eight per cent duty reduction 
for the small car has translated into a tangible 
and immediate lowering of the sticker price by up to Rs. 25,000.

Much of the middle class views cheaper cars as a 
form of social justice, a somewhat belated 
correction introduced to an iniquitous system 
that has historically favoured the wealthy 
minority. Affordable cars, many think, also 
provide freedom from the hazardous, 
uncomfortable, and grossly insufficient buses in 
the public transport system and costly 
alternatives such as autorickshaws and taxis.

Even before the latest price reduction, car sales 
registered strong growth since the availability 
of hire purchase on affordable terms. Things are 
even better after the budget ­ cars that breach 
the promised one-lakh price barrier seem very feasible.

Sales of passenger cars, already enjoying strong 
growth from the start of the present decade, are 
bound to grow even faster. The Society of Indian 
Automobile Manufacturers says 567,728 passenger 
cars were sold in 2000-01 and four years later, sales touched 819,918.

The car is promoted heavily as a symbol of 
independence, comfort, and efficiency, and, above 
all, unfettered mobility. Those who wait for 
buses are forlorn figures, literally left out in 
the cold, waiting for the kindly soul to provide 
a lift in a car. Children are proud of fathers who can buy a "big car."

Reality is different from advertising spots. In 
the urban context such creative images of freedom 
are replaced by the reality of gridlocked 
traffic, road rage, health impacts, higher 
accident rates, and, above all, a reduction in 
mobility. Travel times are actually becoming 
longer as a result of "automobilisation."

Perhaps the best-known example of urban travel 
stress at a peak, with steady growth in private 
car (and two-wheeler) ownership is Bangalore. The 
discourse in Karnataka's capital has shifted to 
the need for public transit options as the 
default travel mode. Many other cities in early 
stages of gridlock are also actively considering 
investments in rail and bus systems.

The imperative for public transit remains strong. 
During the time that it takes to put such systems 
in place, the States may have to meet the 
challenges of a rising car population. This is 
inevitable given the pressure that a sharp rise 
in the number of cars will exert on the poor 
civic infrastructure available even in the biggest cities today.

Most apartment blocks do not have adequate 
parking slots if the majority of residents opt to 
own cars; parking facilities in public places are 
also scarce and there is increasing pressure to 
carve out road space currently serving 
pedestrians, cyclists and buses, to facilitate car parking.

Compulsion to park on the kerb also raises the 
risk of theft and vandalism, besides the threat 
of policing penalties. While some of these issues 
can be addressed through policy interventions for 
short-term relief, the wider issue of declining 
efficiency caused by congestion, exemplified by 
the Bangalore experience, is unlikely to be mitigated.

Chennai's experience, which is not exceptional, 
indicates that State Governments and municipal 
administrations are following civic policies that 
are in no position to handle rising car 
ownership. In its policy note for 2005-06 on 
Housing and Urban Development, the Tamil Nadu 
Government identifies nine intra-city sites for 
planned development of parking facilities in the 
State capital (some of them contentious from an 
environmental perspective because they privilege 
automobiles over other road users), but as the 
year draws to a close, these projects have not 
progressed to any appreciable degree. Another 
project announced at the start of the year, on 
creating a centralised testing track to assess 
applicants for driving licenses has not been commissioned in Chennai.

Rising car ownership also has serious 
implications for fuel demand, pollution, and road 
safety. The Rocky Mountain Institute, quoted by 
Scientific American in a survey of energy in 
2005, states that only 13 per cent of fuel energy 
used in a car reaches the wheels, the rest 
dissipating as heat and noise in the engine, the 
drive train, air conditioning, and idling. 
Moreover, 95 per cent of the accelerated mass is 
the car itself and only one per cent of fuel is 
utilised to move the driver. Few will be 
convinced that there is a case for facilitating 
the continued use of costly and polluting fossil 
fuels in this fashion. There is then the question of safety.

Professor Dinesh Mohan, a traffic injury 
prevention expert at the Indian Institute of 
Technology, Delhi, told a recent seminar on Bus 
Rapid Transit in Chennai that a staggering 20 
million to 30 million people have been killed by 
motor vehicles and 500 million injured; about 
80,000 lives are lost on Indian roads alone each 
year; the majority of those killed are 
pedestrians, cyclists, and riders of motorised two-wheelers.

Need for policy change

The World Health Organisation thinks that without 
a change in policies, vehicular accidents could 
kill or disable more people in 2020 than HIV, 
tuberculosis, stroke, diarrhoeal diseases, 
pneumonia, emphysema/bronchitis, and war. Are 
governments alive to the impending danger?

Urban infrastructure is in a broken down 
condition. The journal Transport Policy put the 
issue in perspective in a 2005 paper titled 
"Urban transport crisis in India." John Pucher 
and his colleagues note that some gains have been 
made in reducing non-particulate emissions by 
changing the composition of automotive fuels, 
such as removing lead and lowering sulphur 
content, but India's cities remain seriously 
plagued by fundamental problems such as weak and 
low quality roads, unsafe driving behaviour, poor 
traffic signalling, signage, and law enforcement.

National policy towards cars may thus have to 
progressively consider curbs on inefficient use 
of private vehicles, of which cars are the best 
example. Cost-effective alternatives such as 
buses, urban rail and para transit modes need 
active consideration and support.

Though the car may appear to be more affordable 
now, restrictions on its use, such as congestion 
charging, costlier parking, ban in some 
pedestrian areas, and reduced right of way in 
favour of buses, pedestrians, and cyclists may be inevitable.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu





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Sujit Patwardhan
PARISAR
"Yamuna", ICS Colony,
Ganeshkhind Road,
Pune 411007
India

Telephone: +91 20 255 37955
Email: <sujit at vsnl.com>, <sujitjp at gmail.com>
Web Site: www.parisar.org
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