[sustran] Wheeling, dealing Reform Of Urban Transport Essential But Utopian

[Vinay Baindur]

Wheeling, dealing
Reform Of Urban Transport Essential But Utopian
Suhit Sen

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=236316

For once the Centre has been presented with a plan that can go a long way
towards decongesting our cities, improving urban air quality and meeting the
challenge of climate change. The question is will the Centre accept the
recommendations made under the National Action Plan on Climate Change and
move fast to implement them.
Let's take a look at the recommendations, which, let us also remember are
not particularly radical or novel. Advocacy groups like the Centre for
Science and Environment have been pushing a similar policy frame for years.
At the heart of the recommendations lies the realisation that the state must
adopt a policy that increasingly discourages the use of private vehicles by
imposing costs that approximate more closely the real public costs and
"externalities" ~ mainly environmental and health costs ~ involved in
operating a private vehicle, while making the use of public mass transit
systems more attractive. This is essential given that in Ahmedabad,
Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai ~ the number of private
vehicles is increasing four times faster than population, with the share of
public transport falling from 69 per cent to 38 per cent between 1994 and
2007 in cities with 4 million people or more.

Congestion charge

In keeping with this realisation, a panel has suggested for now that
congestion charges be imposed, parking fees be hiked to reflect the true
cost of the use of space and remove hidden subsidies, corridors be dedicated
to public-transport vehicles, the mass transport sector be made more
competitive by reducing taxes and duties on them relative to those on
private vehicles (in Delhi, for instance, private vehicles pay a lower road
tax) and people be forced to prove that they have access to parking space
before acquiring a vehicle. This is a good beginning, though many more
recommendations can be added to the list ~ fiscal disincentives for sports
utility vehicles and other gas-guzzlers, similar disincentives for private
diesel vehicles along with more stringent emissions norms not just for
vehicles but also for fuel (mainly to phase out low-grade diesel, which is
absurdly polluting). Hopefully the final recommendations of the panel ~ the
Mission on Sustainable Habitat ~ will be more comprehensive.
What will it take to put in place a policy that will move people into mass
transportation away from personal vehicles and bring clean fuels and engines
on to the roads? Simple: an uphill struggle to cut the massive power of the
automobile and oil industries and its lobbyists down to size. The world
over, these two industries have persistently blocked all attempts to reduce
dependence on hydrocarbons through the implementation of fiscal and other
measures that penalise fuels and technologies responsible for greenhouse-gas
emissions and help the development of technologies that are not or less
dependent on fossil fuel ~ hybrids, hydrogen-based fuel cells and so on.
Nowhere have the oil and automobile industries been as powerful as they have
in the US, as a recent book by two staffers of The Economist unpicks in
great detail. While Japanese companies ~ principally Toyota ~ have gone
ahead with innovative emissions-control technologies, the US's big three
automakers have been as dinosaur-like in their approach as the US federal
government has been till date. For this they have been rewarded with
repeated bailouts ~ the mother of which is in the pipeline.
In India too, however, state policy has failed to encourage alternative
technologies and mass rapid transport systems, by and large, though some
take an inordinately rosy view of the country's ability to "leapfrog". The
CNG story is just getting off the ground ~ of which more later ~ but, for
instance, the Reva, an electrically powered car, has hardly made any impact
on Indian cities. Part of the reason is poor marketing ~ but, equally, it
has received no state support in the shape of fiscal breaks or the kind of
patronage that Hindustan Motors continues to get in the shape of government
orders. Small is not sexy, environment-friendly is even less so. Policy
initiatives to encourage public transport or discourage emissions haven't
gone down too well. The vehicle-owning class in Delhi has gone ballistic
about the bus rapid transport corridor that the Delhi government has begun
experimenting with. While it may be true that the project was not designed
ideally, the point Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit made ~ don't throw the baby
out with the bathwater ~ has received very little sympathy. A differential
fiscal regime sought to be introduced by Ms Dikshit's government to control
emissions was almost blocked by the automobile lobby. The Delhi
administration still remains somewhat enlightened. Elsewhere the dinosaurs
still stalk the earth.
Take the West Bengal government. Kolkata is in an ironically enviable
situation. Public transport, from intuitive and tendentious evidence, seems
to have a bigger constituency in the city even among the kind of people who
can afford private vehicles compared to other big cities, if only as a
result of the state's steady deindustrialisation and relative poverty. The
state government could have turned this into an opportunity ~ making a
virtue of necessity, if you will ~ to aggressively push mass transport and
emissions control. It hasn't, because it is a prisoner of corrupt,
self-serving syndicates and unions it has promoted for three decades, which
means public, mass transport remains mired in a huge mess.
Despite being the first city to get metro services, Kolkata has not seen an
expansion of the network largely because an inept government couldn't be
bothered to push ahead. Recently mooted extensions are behind schedule,
badly conceived or so ambitious in scope as to attract derision from
citizens who still remember the fiasco of the disruptive construction that
blighted the city for years. The circular railway is an expensive bauble
that makes a very small impact on the city's transportation needs. No one
who has an option would like to use the city's bus system because that,
currently, is life-threatening. There has been no attempt to discipline the
system so to make it a comfortable and safe commute, which, moreover, does
not create mayhem on the roads.

Public initiative

The shuttle autorickshaw network connecting to the Metro line was an
innovation that could have worked wonders ~ come to think of it, it still
does, despite the odds ~ if, again, some policing had been in evidence. What
is desperately needed is the simple enforcement of traffic and safety rules
to begin with. Then, of course, is the question of clean fuel and technology
for emissions control. The government brought forward a high court directive
to phase out polluting two-stroke engines for both two-wheelers and
three-wheelers and specified that autorickshaws would have to convert to LPG
or CNG mode by the end of this year. Pressure from owners' syndicates and
unions on the specious plea that livelihoods would be affected ~ specious
because the scheme envisages generous support from the government,
automakers and banks ~ has meant that the plan has gone into deep
hibernation. Don't hold your breath for change, though you really should in
India's most polluted city.
Citizens, governments and advocacy groups must come together to propagate
some simple ideas about transportation. First, owning and operating a car is
all about mobility and "liberation" ~ US-style. This objective is defeated
if private cars choke the roads so badly that the best you can do is 10-15
km/hr, depending on the city you are in. A comfortable mass transport
network would help; citizens have to push for it.
Second, pollution is a reality that affects everyone ~ again, a cross-class
citizens' initiative is needed to force governments to take action. Third,
climate change is not a figment of some extra-terrestrial green imagination.
Without compromising development, emissions control has to be prioritised ~
and transportation is the easiest sector to start with. Any takers?
The writer is Senior Editor, The Statesman
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