Enrique Penalosa, President of Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) gave a talk in Anna University on Friday (November 20, 2009) on how the Chennai transport system could be transformed so as to make the city ‘livable’ and the citizens ‘happy’. Penalosa, former mayor of Bogota, began the talk by stating that a city that is good for its children, the elderly, the handicapped, the poor, is good for everyone else.
The talk focused on making buses the primary mode of transport and on restricting usage of cars in order to make the city free of traffic jams and pollution. Car usage is said to be a luxury enjoyed by hardly 10 per cent of the total population who incidentally also possess maximum political power. Penalosa said that the citizens need to stop viewing transport as being closely linked to social status as this intensifies the problem of social exclusion. Even the richest places in the world like Manhattan, New York city, have its citizens of all social strata traveling in buses.
Penalosa rejected the idea of metro rail, flyovers and highways serving as a sustainable solution to the traffic problem in Chennai, which by 2060 is said to become 75 per cent urbanized from the present 50 per cent. Metro rail is expensive and hence excludes a sizeable section of the population. ‘Americans keep constructing new flyovers and extend the existing ones, but the traffic keeps getting worse every year. Have you wondered why?…. What we require is a low-cost, high frequency mode of transport which only buses can provide’, said Penelosa.
Penalosa stated that the ‘largest political movement in the second half of the 20th century of the large western countries was against the construction of urban highways.’ He said that while transport policies in the advanced cities like Paris call for a reduction in car use, unfortunately the opposite is true for developing cities which instead facilitate car use.
Penalosa said that in order to make public transport efficient, it has to be heavily subsidized through higher taxes on car use and fuel. A green city with bicycle riders, and buses as the fastest mode of transport accessible by all would also lead to social inclusion and make the city livable and happy and not just rich, he said.
The talk brought into light the urgent need for transformation of not just the transport system in Chennai but also of the lifestyles of people. While the viability of the system as proposed by Penalosa might be questioned on various grounds, it is a clear indication to the transport authorities to re-align their policies and strategies in accordance with what the citizens want. It is imperative for the transformation to be people-centric.
To know more about Enrique Penalosa, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrique_Peñalosa
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