I often get flummoxed by this paradox. At one end there is this unending traffic growth in the Indian metropolitan cities. We hear of how our cities and towns are the victims of rapid urbanization unable to deal with an ever-burgeoning number of vehicles on the roads. We are pounded by alarming statistics of the number of vehicles on the roads doubling every few years. But at the other end is the clamour from all the automobile biggies to double their growth at an even faster pace. While the local page of your daily newspaper carry pictures of traffic snarls, the business page will have a headline of a car-maker vying to double his profits. Isn't this is a Catch 22 situation?
City roads are choking and running out of space to accommodate anymore automobiles. Vehicle pollution is reaching alarming levels and governments are wondering how to deal with this situation. When in Delhi they came out with the odd-even rule, it came in for lot of ridicule. The rule even led to a surge in demand for a second vehicle in the family. The ones with an odd number plate were scrambling to get another one with an even number, and vice versa. So it was again the automakers who were laughing all the way to the bank, while as citizens we continued adding more vehicles to the road. Last heard, the Karnataka government was mulling a ban on new vehicle registrations. But the worry is that it will only lead to loss of registration and road tax revenue for the State government. The vehicles will still keep coming in; just that many of them will be registered in other States and fill their government coffers.
We have this urge to go for the biggest SUV or sedan even if it is a lone soul hauling it all the way to his office and back home every day. If it is affordable, we go for it: damn the cubic units it occupies on the road and the fuel it guzzles. It is a win-win for the automaker again, who tantalises us with more ads of even bigger cars.
I am no exception, I too drive solo a mid-size car. When I look at the relatively bigger cars being driven around, I sneer at them with the contempt of how they are a burden on the economy, gulping more fuel, clogging more space and adding to the overall chaos. But then I realised that the guy riding the bike next to me would be sneering at me for the same reason. Albeit a smaller one, a car is a car.
In that sense, the bicyclist is the guy who rides with the least guilt and also gets the awes for being the go-green crusader. By the way, please note that it is only those ‘elite’ bicyclists with fancy helmets and tight leotards who gets the kudos for being the go-green champion, not the daily wage laborers who use their worn and torn bicycle every day.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make about the bicyclist on the road is that you will notice the other motor vehicles see the bicycle and the rider as some alien invading their roads and slowing them down in their road race and hustle for space. They will blare their horns wild to get the bicyclists away from their path. It doesn't matter that the bicycle will be almost close to the edge of the road and he may fall off the edge, alarmed by this sudden loud blast of horn from behind.
We often see road widening as a panacea for all traffic ills, many times it is done at the cost of removing the foot paths themselves. Lesser said about the footpaths the better. Some believe that only vehicles have the right to move around and pedestrians are not part of the road ecosystem. We see two wheelers riding on the footpaths to get ahead in their race of life and on top of that they have the audacity to honk at the pedestrians using the footpath to give way to them. ‘How dare you walk on my way, can’t you see I am on a motorbike and you are just a pedestrian?’
Road-widening is also a good example of pushing the problem to another day. The more you widen, the more vehicles are added. It is a demand-and-supply phenomenon. To ease a choked road, we widen the road or build a subway or flyover and create more space. The next thing we see there are more apartments or tech parks coming up on that road since the road is more spacious now. The road gets buried in traffic in no time. In addition, there are the land sharks owning business complexes on either side of the road who staunchly believe the widened road space is meant for parking their customer’s cars.
The Outer Ring Road in Bengaluru was one such classic example of town planning mismanagement. The ORR was a paradise when it was built just after the turn of the century. Many stretches were developed as greenfield projects where no road ever existed before. Wide, six-lane roads seemed a luxury, and driving on them was like a dream-come-true. But look at the mess now. This is how cyclones are formed, isn't it? Where there is a low pressure area, air rushes in and we have a cyclone.
To decongest the city, urban experts have often cited developing the suburbs. In developed countries, the suburbs are very self-reliant. And it is cool to live in a suburb. You have access to all your needs and a lot less traffic. But in India, we may have very few examples of such self-reliant suburbs or satellite towns. Most of the urban infrastructure such as the metro trains, subways and elevated speedways are designed with an intent to direct more people and traffic into the city rather than away from the city.
Finally, if you ask me if I want to suggest some solution to this perennial problem? Hmm... I do not have any. Also, am I ready to ditch my car and take the bus? Or am I willing to move or work away from the city, thus doing my bit to decongest the city? Do I have a choice? Alas, seems like all this is easier said than done!
