Easing growth pressures of city beautiful

Easing growth pressures of city beautiful
BY GEORGE K KURUVILA
Deccan Herald

Widening roads and building flyovers are mere stop gap solutions which add to the already congested traffic in the City. The need of the hour is proactive planning looking into future requirements.

In my previous article, I touched upon the need of visionary, proactive planning rather than the city doing nothing to anticipate problems over the years, and then coming up with stop gap arrangements only when the problems arise. The case in point is the traffic planning where the traffic has increased consistently over many years at 8.6 per cent a year.

Bangalore, at present, has over 22 lakh vehicles with about 20,000 new registrations every month.

At this rate of increase, the total volume of traffic will double in about eight years — 44 lakh vehicles by 2013.

Are we prepared or preparing for this exponential growth, either to accommodate or reduce this humungous forecast of doubling the present number of vehicles by 2013?

Most Bangaloreans would agree there is already too much traffic on the road, so much that the vehicles have taken away the streets from pedestrians.

How much of road widening will be needed to accommodate this kind of traffic explosion?

Will the corresponding road-widening or building flyovers help?

On the contrary, these actually encourage more traffic (at a very considerable cost) and are simply stop-gap and reactive planning measures taken for traffic explosion, which should have been anticipated years in advance with very simple forecasting techniques.

Proactive planning in successful world cities

The alternative is to proactively consider ways to reduce the anticipated traffic. Let us consider how the well-planned cities of the world have successfully tackled this problem over the years. Singapore planned and built visionary train and bus public transportation systems to provide an alternative to automobile travel. Then they levied heavy taxes making it very expensive to own a car within the city, thus reducing the number of private vehicles.

London charges a “congestion charge” for vehicles entering the central business district, while providing efficient train and bus public transportation systems.

Paris plans to cut down traffic to its historic heart by 75 per cent within seven years. Under its three-stage plan, the large central zone on the right bank of the Seine would be closed except for permit holding local traffic. They plan to reduce the speed limit and narrow (please note narrow, not widen) the major traffic arteries. All the above cities encouraged public transportation on one hand, and on the other discouraged private vehicles to reduce congestion and make commuting easier.

Reclaiming sidewalks from motorists

By reducing vehicles, as done in above examples, our cities can hope to return the street to the pedestrian by having wider pedestrian sidewalks, sidewalk cafes, pedestrian plazas and exclusive pedestrian shopping areas, like outdoor malls/ bazaars (which are also a part of our culture). All these would encourage people to walk — to schools, neighbourhood shopping malls, parks, offices, for recreation and health, thus providing this basic necessity of city living and helping improve the quality of life for its citizens.

Can we aim at making Bangalore, a children-friendly city? As Enrique Penalosa, the visionary mayor who transformed Bogota, Columbia’s capital in just three years (1998-2001) said “The measure of a good city is when a child on a bicycle can safely go anywhere. If a city is good for children, it is good for everyone else. Over the last 80 years, we have been making cities more for cars’ mobility than for children’s happiness.”

Current scenario in the city

Compare this with Bangalore’s traffic planning where lack of simple forecasting and proactive planning leads to the problem of excessive vehicular traffic. Then the city authorities react to the problem by widening the roads, often by reducing or removing sidewalks, hence many pedestrians are forced to walk on the road, risking life and limb. Then the widened roads become congested with traffic again, sometimes immediately. When the main arterial roads get clogged again, the city authorities react by proposing to confiscate private property (including well built residential/ commercial properties) to further widen the road. Doesn’t road widening actually encourage more traffic, thus “feeding the problem”, instead of reducing it? Paraphrasing what Arif Parvaiz, an environment and development consultant based in Karachi says, “Widening roads to increase traffic capacity, is like buying bigger trousers to deal with your weight problem. It only gets worse with time.”

Similar is the story of “mini flyovers” being built at inner city traffic intersections, where there are so many traffic intersections hardly a few metres apart; where the built up flyover structure actually causes more congestion at street level in an already congested environment. As I have stated earlier, “Mini flyovers simply pass the traffic flow problems onto the next intersection, within the inner city.” These are a few examples of short term, stop gap traffic planning arrangements which actually encourage traffic congestion and thus fuel the problem in the long run.

In conclusion

In brief, a lack of appropriate forecasting techniques and corresponding proactive city planning leads to a “pile up of problems” in the city.

Proactive city planning begins with forecasting future needs based on present conditions, identifying anticipated problems and planning remedial measures. Visionary city planning begins with the vision of what we would like our cities to be, like Penalosa’s Bogota.

In helping solve the anticipated problems, about ten years ahead are grand opportunities which will hopefully be seized by the city and private enterprise together, with the aim of improving the quality of life for its citizens. Like introduction of modern, cost effective, solar powered, high speed public transportation systems and proposed development of new satellite cities which would help divert the pressure of unprecedented growth away from the metropolis.



The author is an architect and urban/ regional planner. For details contact on E-mail: gkk_townplanning@yahoo.com