Urban Planning Blog

Not providing bike lanes would have been a better option than providing such stupid lanes. They are not only completely useless but also dangerous for bikers.

With the launch of Tata’s new car, the Nano which is priced at Rs. 1 lakh ($2500), roads in Mumbai are prone to congestion in the future. But does the city have enough parking space and what is the government doing to address these concerns? These questions are examined in this Hindustan Times article for which I was interviewed as well and have been quoted as well.

Ever wonder how you can increase mileage without having to convert to a hybrid or electric car? The Cleantech Blog tells us how simple design changes can affect your car’s mileage. I wonder what is keeping the Big Three from at least implementing such simple and basic design changes.

On the other hand, this couple have started out on their Fossil Fuel Free Roadtrip.

The Bicycle Transportation Alliance is relaunching its Bike Commute Challenge next month. this ‘challenge’ hopes to motivate you to bike to work during the entire month of September.

Before…

After…

You choose which one you prefer (via TreeHugger).

A measure that would drastically alter the fate of neighborhoods in San Francisco is heading toward a ballot. The measure argues for a “one-size-fits-all parking solution on San Francisco’s distinct neighborhoods while removing protections for pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit from the city’s Planning Code.” This goes against neighborhood efforts at reducing vehicles [due to presence of public transit] in their neighborhood. If you are reading this from SF, you might want to voice your opinion.

"We must take a stand now to reduce pollution and improve air quality in our state, and this is the dramatic step forward that we need." Eliot Spitzer the erstwhile NY prosecutor and now Governor is impressed by the potential and workability of congestion pricing.

Any Mumbaikar would be proud of the flyovers and bridges built in recent times and use them as an indicator of urban development. It isn’t long before comparisons with Shanghai start taking root. Only after you scratch beneath the surface, you realize the hollowness of the argument and claims. The recent upswing in economic fortunes of the city and also rest of the country have opened the doors to the usual forms of materialistic pleasures, one of which is your own vehicle. In a city with standing room only, the desire to buy your own car as soon as the cash starts flowing in is not diminished in anyway. Realistically you wouldn’t need a car to get around in Mumbai but then when has practical reason and utility dictated the things we choose to buy.

You would assume that after buying a car, you in addition to having a road to drive your car would also have space to park it wherever you go, right? The statistics tell you otherwise:

There are over 15 lakh cars on Mumbai’s roads, but common parking space
for only — hold your breath — 8,000, thanks to the 100-odd pay-and-park
areas across the city. The city’s vehicular density is 591 vehicles per
square metre, compared to 163 in New Delhi and the international
average vehicular density of 300 [source].

Finding a parking spot in Mumbai, if you have driven there, can be an uphill battle and takes longer than it takes you to drive anywhere.

As environmental activists have pointed out, only 9 per cent of the 14
million people in the city use cars and two-wheelers, but over
Rs10,000 crore will be spent over the next few years on road projects [source: as above].

So if you have no space to park, wouldn’t it make sense to invest in mass transit systems instead of investing in infrastructure that only seeks to encourage private vehicle ownership. Being a democratic country, you cannot dictate what people ought not to buy but you can certainly influence public choice by emphasizing or deemphasizing certain sectors of urban development. Congestion Pricing [PDF link] would just one such tool.

Technorati Tags: transportation, parking, Mumbai, India, congestion pricing, urban development

The Houston-Galveston corridor is one of the busiest in terms of rush hour traffic as people living in Houston commute everyday along I-45 to their jobs in the oil and gas industry on the coast. But hope arises for reducing the growth in number of vehicles on this already-congested stretch of roadway with the proposal for reviving commuter train service. Best of all, there would no need to lay down new rail lines since it would operate on the historic railroad that currently hosts freight traffic. Although freight traffic would be given preference or if possible siding tracks would be built to accommodate waiting trains, this is a realistic proposal with a greater chance of success in a region that is usually averse to any kind of public transit. The light rail project currently operating between the Medical Center and Downtown Houston is a joke and is often used as a failed strategy by anti-transit proponents. To be fair, the light rail project was doomed from the start and never implemented correctly.

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The history of the streets in an urban landscape seems to be intricately tied in with the automobile and we wouldn’t envision a road without cars plying on them. But frankly, it never was that way to begin with. Streets and roads have always existed as a means to travel but the total dominance of cars on them is a recent phenomenon. Contested Streets: Breaking New York City Gridlock, a documentary highlighting the history and culture of New York City examines the role of the street from the pre-automobile era to the current gridlocked scenario. A recent report suggested that the city will face an all-day rush hour by 2030.

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Now that’s what I call a “green car”

[image source: Daily Dose of Imagery]

Technorati Tags: green car

After reviewing subway logos last week, we turn our attention to actual subway structures which can be a work of art in itself.

There is surely something about bagging a public transit terminal design contract that makes architects go whoopie! They tend to stretch their imaginations, work in collaboration with artists and structural engineers, and turn out really interesting pieces of work. You can even imagine these structures to be completely functional first and yet amazingly captivating. This design by Santiago Calatrava for the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) terminal at the World Trade Center (WTC) site in Lower Manhattan is already creating a buzz:

Although airports can be pretty dramatic, for now we turn our attention to subways. See more pictures here. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: subways, metro, architecture, beautiful structures, art, World Trade Center, Santiago Calatrava

How many subways have you been on? Go here to create your badge.

PS. Nope, I haven’t ridden all the ones above. Just a quick screen capture from the website.

Technorati Tags: subway, transportation, trains, transit, badge, city, metro

Scant regard for pedestrians in India’s capital city that also “boasts” of having most numbers of cars in an Indian city. Of course, pollution is bad although brought under control somewhat by converting public transit buses to CNG. Rampant corruption in obtaining a drivers’ license doesn’t help matters either as it adds thousands of irresponsible drivers on the streets each day. If you prefer numbers:

In 2004, Delhi Traffic Police logged 9,083 accidents, in which 1,832
people died. That’s an average of five auto-related fatalities a day in
a city that boasts 14 million people — but only 2.6 million licensed
drivers, a Transportation Ministry official said. Los Angeles County,
home to 10 million people, had about two such deaths a day the same
year.

Read more.

Technorati Tags: traffic, Delhi, accidents, roads, transportation, urban

Often to solve a traffic-related problem in any growing metropolis, flyovers are touted as the ultimate solution especially in developing countries. The organic cities that have known to survive amidst snarls of unruly traffic and undisciplined pedestrian and vehicular traffic often breathe a sigh of relief that a newly-constructed flyover brings to a daily commute.

Mumbai tried this few years back when they built almost 55 flyovers in a span of five years and Delhi followed suit. Bangalore is the latest villain in traffic management. The situation is so bad that industries that flocked to Bangalore and helped it to prosper are now threatening to leave if the situation is not immediately remedied. Madman provides us with incisive analysis, completely with barebones sketches of the traffic woes that even newer flyovers seem to excacerbate.

I have always maintained that flyovers do not necessarily solve the problem; they simply postpone it for a later administration. Nowadays, considering the bureaucratic and legal delays involved in contracting out and constructing a flyover, it is often obsolete as soon as it is completed. That said, flyovers are in fact a necessary evil. Their core function is to eliminate the traffic lights so as to ensure an uninterrupted and continuous flow of traffic. Ideally, it would be great if you do not encounter any intersection between your point of origin and the destination but unless we completely envelope our urbanscape with flyovers that is not possible. Flyovers have to end somewhere and usually where they end or intersect with other flyovers, a bottleneck is the obvious result almost always negating the advantage of the flyover.

I am no road engineeer or traffic consultant to offer profound solutions. Would it be advisable to isolate heavy-traffic zones like the airport or other transit terminals from individual cars and making them accessible through public transit only? I would prefer to take the train to the airport when it takes me directly inside the terminal like at Hartsfield International Airport whereas taking a bus from downtown Houston is definitely a no-no. Flyovers have a capacity limit that is easily surpassed and often near-impossible to fix. Additional flyovers may not be the solution. Probably, it is time to think ‘outside the flyover’.