How to create A Great City?

Luckily these ideas – this “new urbanism”, has found its way into our National Urban Transport Policy, thus becoming an agent of change for cities in India. This has come about not just because of enlightened thinking, but because Indian cities can simply exist no other way. Our cultural moorings and the sheer volume of our numbers makes the option of creating “people oriented cities”, as erstwhile Mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa calls them, not a matter of choice, but a necessity. Traffic in most large Indian cities is already a nightmare. This, at car ownership of less than a 100 per thousand residents. Is it possible to imagine what will happen when this number reaches 200, or, 300? Better then to abandon going down that path altogether.

The National Urban Transport Policy requires cities to first and foremost reallocate road space democratically. Give space to modes that transport more people – buses. Create adequate spaces for the pedestrians and the cyclists – these modes not only occupy very little space, but in addition to being environment-friendly, they are vulnerable to faster moving vehicles too and thus, need protection. This then forms the basis of what is called “sustainable transportation” – primacy to walking, cycling and public transport. What’s left over, if anything at all, can be used by cars and two-wheelers. This policy will essentially shift cities from spending a vast majority of funds to accommodate the few that use the most inefficient mode, cars, to investing in better public transport and of course, better infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians who have till now been thoroughly ignored.

Many of these ideas are incorporated into the modern invention of BRT (Bus Rapid Transit). Faced with the prospect of an expensive Metro system, Mayor Jaime Lerner of Curitiba, Brazil, decided instead to create a road-based version of a Metro. By creating dedicated lanes for buses, level-boarding, off bus ticketing and real-time passenger information systems, he gave commuters all the features of a Metro, at a fraction of the cost. But it goes beyond that. By using the same road space and reallocating it in this fashion, it also limits the expansion of space for cars.

For the first time then, cities are being forced to look beyond the motor-carriageway and the strip of asphalt that heretofore signified “the road” and look at the “complete street”. The footpath, so far just an afterthought, becomes an equally important component of the street and in fact, the transportation system itself. Without safe, comfortable and good quality pedestrian infrastructure, people simply cannot get to the bus (or any public transport).

The simple guidelines of the Indian Roads Congress (IRC) are no longer sufficient to ensure the high quality of the pedestrian environment needed – one that is seen in other “developed” cities. Once again there is a need for arriving at guidelines that are based on the principle of “people first”. Such guidelines are commonplace in all modern cities and are generally referred to as “Street Design Guidelines”. These manuals lay out in great detail all the essential elements that make up a great walking environment, not just the dimensions of the footpath, but the material, the streetlights, the tree gratings, the crossings, the street furniture and so on. They set the standard for walking comfortably by advocating complete handicapped accessibility, and by doing so, automatically cater to the needs of the elderly and children. These guidelines too limit the space for motorised vehicles. The Complete Street Design Guidelines prepared by UTTIPEC, the technical wing of the Delhi Development Authority, the first of its kind in India, for instance limits the width of the motor carriageway on an 18m street to just 7.5m, thus providing ample space for pedestrians and making the street easier to cross. In short, they make it “human scale”.

We still have a long way to go to fix our cities. But getting the direction right and the vision and the philosophy behind it right, is the first important step in the journey.

Ranjit Gadgil