Expansion alone won’t reduce congestion

by A Special Correspondent

Congestion and its consequences

The World Health Organisation recommends 10 micrograms of Particulate Matter 2.5 (indicator of pollution) in ambient air. However, in Chennai, it is between 40 and 60 micrograms as against the Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM) in air that is safe up to 60 micrograms per cubic metre. Some parts of Chennai have about 120 micrograms. The main reason for high air pollution is the exhaust from the ever-increasing number of vehicles on the city roads causing congestion, fuel wastage and high emission.

Chennai’s vehicle population has been accelerating steadily from 6 lakh in 1992, to 13 lakh in 2001 and 36 lakh in 2012. Chennai has the second largest vehicle population in the country. Daily, about 1,500 new vehicles hit the roads, with two-wheelers constituting more than 75 percent of them. It is predicted that Chennai will soon have twice as many vehicles as Mumbai. Still, car penetration within cities in the country is only about 20 per 1000 compared to 90 in China, indicating a frightening possibility for further growth unless steps are taken to cope with or discourage such progression.

In terms of vehicle density, that is, number of vehicles per km of road, Chennai tops the list with 2093 against Delhi’s 245. Delhi’s low density is because of its road length. Compared to 1800 km in Chennai, Delhi has around 30,000 km of road length. Owing to high traffic density, average bus speed in our city in 2014 was 18 kilometres per hour. Over the next five years, it is expected to come down to 12 km per hour.

The Government of Tamil Nadu has acknowledged its concern over the congestion in Madras and the consequences of it by, recently, increasing the Chennai Metropolitan Area from 1,189 sq. km. to 8,878 sq. km. On the face of it, dispersal of settlements over a wider expanse is a welcome step. However, unless it is swiftly followed up by time-bound investments for connectivity, affordable mobility and decentralisation of public services, there would be no impact on pollution levels. The last redefinition of the area in 1974 has still left outlying habitats in the extended area as isolated unserviced “islands”, congestion in the City remaining untouched. The contrast of population density of 7,448 persons/sq. km. in outlying areas and 26,903 persons/sq. km. in the down town area shows that people have not moved out. So, repeating the same mantra of extending the area is not by itself going to yield results. Professor A. Srivathsan of CEPT University (Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology), Ahmadabad, has identified this deficiency and pointed out that the previously extended area should first be integrated before demarcating a larger area.

Apart from giving priority to the previously extended area to provide connectivity, affordable mobility and localised public services, realising the full potential to rationalise and discipline traffic in the City, should receive urgent attention. In older cities, there is a limit up to which widening or building of more roads is feasible as a measure to reduce vehicle density. Therefore, innovative usage of available space should be fully exploited.

To moderate congestion, several cities are experimenting with new methods. The chaotic competition to occupy central road space among 2-, 3- and 4wheelers, and slow-moving hand carts, is there for us to see every day. Separating 2- and 3- wheelers from 4-wheeled motor vehicles by assigning them exclusive divided lanes is worth a try. Bays for bus stops could prevent these large obstructions taking positions right in the middle of the road as authorised bus stops. A narrow, protected lane on the margin could be earmarked for cyclists backed up by a bicycle sharing system. A good beginning was made in 2014 for a bicycle sharing system. It must be pursued, encouraged and systematised.

Converting regular two-way roads into one-ways is a short-term measure to achieve traffic decongestion and is effective up to a level of traffic volume beyond which only a flyover or equivalent device is needed. It must be said, however, that the one-way means of encouraging unidirectional flow is more efficiently applied in Chennai compared to Bengaluru.

A bus carrying 60 or so passengers has prior right to road space over cars occupying nearly the same space but carrying often only one or two passengers. The innovation of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, encouraged even by the World Bank, for large cities of developing countries, performs two functions – it disciplines the bus to move within the dedicated space and recognises its priority for taking lesser road space per passenger. The BRT looks and behaves like a subway, offering high capacity rapid transit without competing with other vehicles. We do not know why this method has not been tried on some of the City’s wide roads.

Chennai city’s bus network is among the best in the country for its comprehensive coverage but, in the process, it penetrates the interior, where congested and narrow roads cause traffic snarls that spread in a ripple effect to neighbouring areas. Cannot the secondary and tertiary routes be reserved for private-operated mini-buses or share-auto types that are more manoeuvrable? These could operate in allotted zones and can be painted in different colours so that they could be spotted if they operate in an unauthorised area.

Discouraging car ownership, use of cars on busy roads and use of roads at peak hours – through congestion pricing as in Singapore – is not such a far-fetched idea as it was a few years ago, thanks to easily available technology. Many cities have traffic signals that are automatically calibrated to a standard assessment of traffic demand in different parts of the day or even on a real-time basis from a central command. In the absence of such adjustments, we, as rule-abiding citizens, are often caught in a mini moral dilemma – going at 5 am in the morning to airport to wait for 90 seconds at a junction for a non-existent traffic or defy it in the absence of any risk. In Singapore, through these various methods, car ownership has come down to 0.18 per capita and use of public transport has gone up to 48 per cent.

Most of our sidewalks are unusable, because they are hazardous or filthy or taken up for unauthorised uses. If only the sidewalks were safe, attractively surfaced, and kept free of encroachments, they would be used by pedestrians and there could be freer flow of vehicular traffic.

Examples of rationalisation have been cited only to show there are possibilities at minimal cost. Systems become useless unless backed by strict enforcement of traffic rules. Equally important is responsible citizenship. The better income classes should not consider it infra dig to be seen using public transport. More people adopting mass public transport would reduce traffic density, increase speed of mobility and reduce pollution. For this, public transport should be clean, efficient, timely and affordable. Inadequacy or inefficiency of public transport forces people to resort to individualised unshared mobility.

Above all, visible demonstration of the government’s concern and swiftness of action would put citizens’ minds at rest.

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