cars

Co-authored by Dattatraya T Devare and Saurabh Ketkar None of us can escape being a pedestrian. No matter which mode of transport you use, at some point of the day, you will be a pedestrian if you step out of home. But the moment you alight from any mode of transport or vehicle, and get on your own two feet in this country, you are perhaps the most vulnerable citizen on the street. In 2018, more than half of the fatalities on Mumbai streets were pedestrians; the numbers for Delhi and Bengaluru also do not look encouraging with 44% and…

Co-authored by Dattatraya T Devare and Saurabh Ketkar It is not news that urban Indian roads are a nightmare, and Bangalore is perhaps in the contention for winning the award for the worst traffic scenario. But one needs to dig deeper to find the root of the problem. Our streets are extremely unequal, in more ways than one. The streets of our city are perhaps the most democratic of spaces we can envision. Protests against governments, demands of minority groups, gay pride parades all find expression on the streets. It is the one space that every citizen can share with…

A private car should ideally carry four to five people. But a recent survey in Udyog Vihar Industrial Area in Gurugram showed that it carries only 1.6 persons on average. The survey was conducted by the IT company Nagarro among over 2600 of its own employees. Among the survey respondents, 42 percent were using private cars to come to office, contributing to the infamous congestion in the city. The majority of them did not carpool. A quarter of the car users sometimes parked their cars on the street next to office, which could also congest the road. Another 19 percent…

It is a pretty linear argument as far traffic solutions go. The big bad car versus pedestrians and cyclists. Non-motorized transport (NMT) versus motorised private transport. If we want to get out of this nightmare we call traffic jams and decongest the city, we need to get people out of their private vehicles and have them take to mass transit and non-motorised transport options i.e. walking and cycling, in a big way. Sounds pretty simple in theory, and this is expected to be the linchpin that will not only decide the which way urban mobility is headed, but also decide the survival…

In our deeply undemocratic traffic system, we need to call out how strong the automobile lobby is, how suppressed pedestrians are and how small is the resistance from pedestrians and public transport uses. Consider this: peaceful, democratic protesters are not allowed by a force-wielding police to come anywhere near Mantralaya. They are confined to a corner some 2 km away in Azad Maidan, in a corner, rendered invisible to the people. But axe-wielding men of the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS) could easily dig up the footpath right in front of the state government headquarters, supposedly to protest the presence of…

In Part 1 of this series, Citizen Matters had talked about carpooling startups in various cities and how people are availing these facilities. Despite the emergence of a number of players in the field, however, there are various challenges that these companies are grappling with. The biggest challenge carpooling entrepreneurs face is that the concept itself is not yet so popular in India. Concerns about privacy and security are common, so is the general feeling of discomfort in travelling in a stranger’s car. Hence a large part of these entrepreneur’s efforts are invested in popularising the concept and getting the support of…

Pavithra Sudhakar, a Hyderabad resident, used to spend about an hour travelling to her office daily. A senior software engineer in Wipro, she had to travel the 12 kms to office by cab or auto. Then, a year back, she started using the carpooling app sRide. “I tried it after getting emails from my company (sRide has a tie-up with Wipro). Since then I have been using carpooling to go to office and back, daily. My travel time is only 40 minutes now,” she says. For Pavithra, this time saving is the biggest advantage of carpooling. “The person driving the…

The trend of Indian cities hosting car free days, when streets or stretches are closed to motorised vehicles and opened up for the people and various events, has become quite pronounced. But can these really go beyond day-long enjoyment and festivities, and pave the way for more sustainable mobility? According to organisers, open street events have helped change mindsets and do bring about tangible outcomes. A survey by WRI (World Resources Institute) of 185 participants of Gurgaon Raahgiri Day showed that 28% had bought cycles after attending the event, and 87% had started walking or cycling for short trips. Similarly,…