Photo by James Cridland.

In ancient Indian and Chinese texts, writers noted that the ultimate form of torture involved subjecting captives to loud and horrible noises. It’s an interesting paradox that we now live in the modern world as free citizens, and all we need to do is stroll down the street to be exposed to noise loud enough to become physically ill, elevating our blood pressure to unhealthy levels, interfering with our sleeping patterns, and causing a whole host of stress related diseases.

On the majority of roads in cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, and Delhi, noise pollution can measure nearly 80-90 decibels during peak hours. That’s roughly the equivalent of standing just 15 feet from a passing freight train! Noise levels above 80 decibels are detrimental to healthy hearing and the Australian EPA suggests that prolonged exposure to noise at or above this level can cause deafness. It’s such a serious problem that researchers in the EU found that the social cost of noise pollution for that region is 0.4% of total GDP. In Indian city’s it must be a lot worse. (For normal tension free conversation one requires a background noise level less than 55 decibels.) Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

Photo by MumbaiDailySnapshot.

From the Boston Globe, this just in: “More than 20,000 people have been killed on Mumbai’s notoriously overcrowded train system over the past five years — many of them crushed, run over or electrocuted — according to official data.”

“No other city in India has so many people traveling by one mode of transport. There are a minimum of 10 deaths daily on the railways,” A.K. Sharma, the railway commissioner, was quoted as saying.

Stayed tuned for a post from our Mumbai-based transport engineer Madhav Pai on ‘Super Dense Crush Load.

Share This

In a recent post here on TheCityFix.com, Sudhir Gota documented the plight of ‘Transport Challenged People’ in Bangalore, India. In his piece, Sudhir explains how Indian transportation policy’s often myopic focus on car infrastructure can reduce the mobility (and thus the quality of life) of those unable to afford automobiles themselves.

Another example of the link between social justice and transport policy is the plight of Delhi’s ‘wastepickers’ – informal sector trash collectors that make their living collecting and sorting garbage. According to Bharati Chaturvedi, Director of Chintan, a community group that advocates for wastepicker rights, new transport policies in Delhi and other Indian cities have often favored the transportation needs of private automobile owners over those of the wastepickers. Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

Al Gore giving keynote speech at World Resources Institute’s 25th Anniversary Dinner. Photo by World Resources Institute on flickr.

This month Al Gore addressed the gala dinner at the India Today Conclave, a three day conference on “Leadership for the 21st Century” held in New Delhi.

At the Conclave, Al Gore very passionately described climate change as a planetary emergency and said advanced developing countries like India can be the leaders of the 21st century by taking actions towards combating the climate crisis.

During his talk, Gore acknowledged that his own country was a big part of the problem. Asking why other countries are not doing enough to address the climate crisis, he said “India has a big role to play, India is not doing it because the U.S. is not doing it. We share each other’s excuses for not safeguarding our planet”.

The diverse audience, consisting of leaders from government, the private sector, and even Bollywood, applauded his recommendations for solving this crisis, which included implementing carbon taxes and changing people’s mindset on the issue.

During his trip to India, Gore also met with India’s Prime Minister and addressed the members of the Indian Parliament. In addition, he led a training program of 100 men and women from all over India who will now conduct climate change awareness campaigns across the country.

I hope his earnest message to India makes a real difference and that the same independent drive and spirit that has contributed to India’s vibrant economy will now help India take the lead in protecting the future of the planet.

Watch Gore’s talk at the Conclave

Share This

Here two-wheelers invade a footpath. All photos by Sudhir Gota, SECON Pvt Ltd.

Krishnappa is a security guard for a multinational software firm in Bangalore who, for the past thirty years, has walked and cycled to work. For Krishnappa, the trip, which often took around 15 to 30 minutes, was one of life’s small pleasures as he made his way along Bangalore’s tree-shaded streets, often meeting friends and acquaintances, discussing politics and family matters, before continuing on his way. However, in recent years he has been unable to walk or cycle to work. And it’s not because of age or injury.

When asked about his transport woes, he blames the government. The increase in land prices, lack of cycle tracks, footpaths, poor public transportation, and the risk of being struck by a motorized vehicle have forced him to drive to work. He now spends nearly 30% of his salary on his monthly commute.

Krishnappa is not alone. Rapidly growing Bangalore city has generated a new human species aptly named “Transport Challenged People.” The common trait of these people is that they are forced to become captive to a mode of transport just because they don’t have an accessible alternative. Their other characteristic is that they pay a price for traveling that they do not consider fair or just, but because they have no other option, they continue to pay it.

Bangalore has seen a spiral of economic activity and urban growth, with the developed area of the city increasing from roughly 175 square kilometers in 1971 to more than 560 in 2006. The government, in order to decongest the city center, restricted the Floor- Space-Index (FSI) – that’s a technical term for building density - in the core and liberated the FSI along the outer peripheries. The restriction in FSI in the city core caused land value here to skyrocket, driving out the lower class to the more affordable peripheries. (There’s a photo essay after the jump)

Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

Photo by Jingye.

As car fever strikes Bangalore and other rapidly-expanding cities throughout India, one group stands to lose out big: pedestrians. Yesterday The Times of India ran an important article - No Place for Pedestrians? - which talks about the demise of pedestrian space on Bangalore’s streets. As The Times notes, rapid motorization has brought about a profound change in the way that people interact with the city:

The development of the Garden City, once teeming with walkers who leisurely ambled down the wide pavements in the evenings, has turned the simple act of crossing the road into a gamble.

And it’s a gamble that all pedestrians have to take, and one that thousands lose, often with fatal results. In 2007, 120,000 people died in car accidents in India, and that number is expected to grow by 5% each year. Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

Photos from Ads of the World.

The rule of thumb when designing a billboard is minimalism: keep it short and simple so that your message is absorbed by anyone, even people casting the most fleeting glance. So why does this billboard in Mumbai have so much text? Traffic. The traffic moves so slowly here that the industry standard doesn’t apply.

Here’s a close up shot so you can read the text of the billboard:

As these billboards suggest, the police are starting to take congestion and the resulting air pollution seriously. This makes sense since its the traffic police that have to stand in traffic all day and breath in exhaust. In Calcutta, many police stations are already being outfitted with oxygen devices so that police officers can breath easier after having been on the streets all day. Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

A view of Hyderabad. Photo by pangalactic gargleblaster.

“We clearly want to move into a much stronger system of public transport in order to avoid excessive dependence on individualized forms of transport, which are both energy using and emission generating,'’ Montek Singh Ahluwalia, head of India’s Planning Commission, said today. His comments came just one day after a speech by India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying that India may “overhaul” its public transportation system

It’s a promising sign that India’s government is taking its urban transport issues seriously. In his speech yesterday the Prime Minister called for India’s Planning Commission to come up with a “comprehensive policy” for public transport. This policy should dovetail nicely with India’s National Urban Transport Policy, which has been crafted to incorporate many of the principles of well-designed and vibrant cities. One of the policy’s highlights: “Encouraging integrated land use and transport planning in all cities so that travel distances are minimized and access to livelihoods, education, and other social needs, especially for the marginal segments of the urban population is improved.” Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

Photo by brewingluminous from Flickr.

A New Delhi based research group, Centre for Science and Environment, has warned that air pollution is reaching critical levels in India’s capital city, threatening the health and wellbeing of the nearly 14 million people who call Delhi home. According to the Center, after 2002, air pollution had been falling as a result of an aggressive effort by the government to clean the air. The improvements, however, have not lasted in large part because ownership of personal vehicles has skyrocketed. According to the Center, Delhi adds a whopping 963 new personal vehicles on its roads each day! The answer to the growing problem, the Center argues, “is a massive initiative to increase public transport…along with steps to restrain the growth of private vehicles.” This will be tough, especially with the debut of super cheap cars in 2008, which more and more people from India’s burgeoning middle class will be able to afford. Why is air pollution such a big deal? The most recent numbers available are extremely upsetting: in 1995, Delhi had 9859 premature deaths related to air pollution. The rates of hospital admissions for illness related to air pollution are also staggering: in 1995 Delhi and Kolkata had a combined 5 million hospital admissions. What’s more, it’s a quality of life issue: who wants to live in cities where clean blue skies are blurred out by noxious brown clouds?

See what the New York Times has to say, here.

Check out Centre for Science and Environment’s presentation, here.

Share This

Photo from http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j212/anjanesh/Blog/tata-1.jpg

By Ethan Arpi and Rob Katz

While discussions of Ratan Tata's 1 lakh car - and other entrants to the ultra-cheap car market - are nothing new to thecityfix.com and many other blogs, the concept received another burst of publicity over the weekend when New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman featured it in a piece entitled No, No, No, Don't Follow Us. Friedman - whose column is syndicated in newspapers throughout the world - argues that while Americans don't occupy the moral high ground when it comes to driving, following the American model of motorization would be catastrophic for India's economy and its environment. Read the rest of this entry »

Share This