[Urbanstudy] A car-friendly city is a danger to democracy.

[Vinay Baindur]

http://www.epw.in/editorials/car-credo.html




The Car Credo
Vol - L No. 31, August 01, 2015

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A car-friendly city is a danger to democracy.

In December 2013 when the newly-elected members to the Delhi assembly took
oath, some 20-odd legislators amongst them caught one’s eye for doing
something Indian politicians rarely do. They took a metro ride to the
swearing-in ceremony. The legislators in question were from the Aam Aadmi
Party (AAP). A few other Members of the Legislative Assembly from the party
took an autorickshaw ride to Ramlila Maidan, the venue for the swearing-in
ceremony. Their detractors dismissed this use of public transport as
another of those gimmicks that had catapulted a bunch of anti-corruption
activists to the corridors of state power.

What happened in the next year or so is well known. AAP began its second
innings in February this year in a much less demonstrative manner. Indeed,
the swearing-in ceremony had the fanfare and all the obtrusive trappings of
power one associates with mainstream political parties—with traffic
advisories asking people to keep away from certain roads. Perhaps they
heralded things to come. Five months later, Delhi’s AAP government has
announced that it will scrap the Capital’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) System.
To be fair, the party had always been unequivocal about its antipathy to
the BRT. Its manifesto for the capital’s Greater Kailash area—the party had
manifestos for different constituencies—described the system as an
“inconvenience” and its legislator from the area, Saurabh Bharadwaj, the
transport minister in the first AAP government, had always been against the
BRT.

AAP has clarified that it is not against the idea of reserving road space
for buses, as the BRT sought to do, but was scrapping the current system
simply because it caused too many problems to commuters. It is not known if
a party which stresses the importance of participatory democracy took the
trouble to consult the people—a majority of whom are likely to be the
constituency it swears by—who take buses on the BRT for their daily
commute. Media reports in the wake of the Delhi government’s announcement
have more or less echoed the good-in-principle-bad-in-practice standpoint.
They too do not show any evidence of having consulted bus users on the BRT.

But such blinkers are not the stock-in-trade of just the media or the Delhi
government. They are symptomatic of a mobility culture which privileges the
personal vehicle over all other modes of transport. In the past 15 years or
so in India, the car has muscled its way into the books of policymakers—and
the aspirations of people. A combination of policy initiatives, fiscal
incentives, urban planning endeavours, and advertising strategies have led
to a veritable car boom in the country. In 2014, 18.5 lakh cars were sold
in India, more than two-and-a-half times the 7,00,000 cars sold in the
country at the turn of the century.

The car credo is not confined to the big metros. Shimla, for example, has
seen a fourfold rise in car sales in the past 15 years or so. In May this
year, the Himachal Pradesh High Court ruled that a car purchaser in Shimla
had to prove that he or she has parking space for the vehicle. According to
one report, 80% of the cars in the city are parked in public areas. Viewed
in this light, the Himachal Pradesh High Court directive may check the loss
of public spaces to cars. Most analysts in the media, however, see the
verdict as favouring the “privileged” among car owners—those who can afford
private space for parking. In such a perception, the personal vehicle is no
longer the preserve of the elite but a right for all.

Such car-centred perceptions of mobility are inimical to democracy. This
car credo overlooks the fact that a person riding to work on a bicycle has
the same right over the road as one driving a car. And equity demands that
a bus with 50 to 100 passengers should have several times the rights of a
car with a solitary traveller, or at the most four passengers. New Delhi’s
BRT was based on this principle. This is not to deny the problems with the
system. But a political choice guided by the principles of equity would
have demanded ironing out BRT’s flaws rather than jettisoning it and giving
a free run to the car.

Most Indian metros—and many other cities—today have miles and miles of
roads that aim to give a free run to the car. Streets where people meet,
talk, sit, play, eat, hold hands, gallivant and feel part of a community
are getting scarcer by the day. Bazaars where people rub shoulders, street
corners where one can buy food and household goods and roadside shops with
their wares displayed outside have been ringed in by huge swathes meant for
the car. Cars parked on pavements are not uncommon in Indian cities.

It is another matter that cars still crawl on such roads. The standard
response is to build more roads and flyovers. Experience the world over has
proved that freeways are at best temporary solutions. The more flyovers,
the more the number of vehicles. Countries—including many in the developing
world—are now learning that discouraging cars, narrowing roads, improving
public transport and reserving road spaces for buses, and building more
pavements for pedestrians foster healthy and more equitable living. We in
India are doing exactly the opposite.
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