BATTLE THE CAR BULGE

Clean, affordable, integrated and accessible public transport the only solution

- ANUMITA ROYCHOWDHURY

MOBILITY CRISIS has hit our cities hard. As public transport, walking and cycling are fast losing space to cars and two-wheelers, energy inefficiency, carbon intensity and toxic pollution are getting locked in the transportation infrastructure. This is snuffing the life out of cities and diverting resources towards carcentric infrastructure-making the mobility crisis irreversible.

Urban agenda of the new government has to fix this crisis. Even though the policies around transportation and mobility have changed considerably to integrate principles of sustainability, and investments have been directed to augment bus programmes and metro and pedestrian infrastructure, the scale of action is yet to gather momentum. There also exists a yawning gap between policies and implementation. To address all these, the new government must first recognise the many facets of mobility crisis.

Transport emissions: Transport emissions, both carbon and other toxic emissions, are difficult to tame. This hard-to-abate sector is dominated by road transport and threatens to upset the energy and carbon budget of the country. The International Energy Agency (IEA) states that the energy use of transport, especially road transport, is set to increase manifold in the stated policy scenario between 2010 and 2040. Cities cannot meet clean air targets without effective action on vehicles, which are among the top three polluters in Indian cities and are responsible for public health risks from cardiovascular diseases to cancer to low weight at birth.