Over 11,000 scientists across the globe declared a climate emergency at the start of 2020, and given the frequency of extreme weather events of late, a fundamental concept such as resilience, prima facie, finds much attachment with multiple urban sectoral agendas and development planning visions.
With a projection that two-thirds of mankind will be residing in cities and urban areas by 2050, urban resilience is becoming a prime issue, in the light of a multiplication of urban risks, especially environmental. Globally, the rising pollution levels in cities is the root cause behind the environmental turmoil in urban areas. Greenhouse Gas emissions from vehicular movements in cities significantly contribute to their increasing pollution levels. With the rapid motorisation observed in India over the past 40 years, the pollution levels in Indian cities have gone far beyond safe limits. The increasing percentages of private transport that lead to urban congestion highlight the urgent need to integrate green mobility initiatives while building the climate resilience of cities.
Currently, there are 53 cities in India with a population of more than a million; by 2030, India will be home to 87 such giant urban agglomerations. Given the industrial and economic activities that these cities host, which accounts for 60-65% of the GDP, these urban centres are India’s engine for economic growth. As the efficiency and productivity of any city is directly dependent on environmental health and seamless transport, Indian cities need to work hard on decarbonising themselves with appropriate planning interventions.
Urbanisation has resulted in increasing travel demands and consequently, increased vehicular trips. These have imperiled Indian cities as they feed air pollution and fuel its adverse effects on public health and climate. As per the World Health Organisation (WHO), 14 out of the top 15 most polluted cities in the world are in India. Air pollution does not only bring about health issues, India’s economic welfare loss due to air pollution, according to the World Bank, has been estimated at 7.7% of the GDP. While the major Indian cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Pune are already 40% above the safe limits of air pollution (as measured by PM 2.5), vehicular emission accounts for almost 30-35% of the air pollution.
Apart from a rise in air pollution, vehicular trips also cause traffic congestion. The traffic congestion scenario in the Indian context is such that 4 of the 10 most congested cities in the world are Indian. Urban congestion brings about longer commute times resulting in a wastage of time for the working population—time that could have been spent on productive work—thereby, reducing the productivity of the city as whole. For example, estimates from the world’s most congested city, Bengaluru, show that 1.18 crore citizens in the city have wasted 60 Crore person-hours annually due to time wastage caused by congestion. The combined costs for the four cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru is over USD 22 billion annually. For the national capital alone, congestion has cost around USD 10 Billion annually. It is evident that both traffic congestion and air pollution, caused by motorised trips, have damaged Indian cities to the core.
To cater to the rising travel demand, India, like many other nations, has prioritised building roads, and flyovers, and has neglected to improve other modes of transit and pedestrian infrastructure. Walking and cycling infrastructure are either absent or inadequate where it exists, making travel by those modes dangerous, and encouraging private travel. As a result, personal motor vehicle ownership in India is doubling every decade, while the cities are already choked up with dangerous pollution.
The shocking extent of the damage already done sets a red alert about optimising India’s travel footprint, so as to decarbonise the cities. This optimisation will not only ensure the efficiency of cities but will ultimately enhance climate resilience as well.
It is noteworthy that both the central and local Governments have come up with various initiatives like National Urban Transport Policy, the Auto Fuel and Vision Policy, and the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020. At the local level, city governments of Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru have adopted innovative financing, along with digital and quality improvement methods to encourage the usage of public transport.
It is a long-standing argument that the reduction of vehicular trips, discouraging the growth of private vehicles, can be done by promoting public transport. The availability of buses per thousand citizens is just 1.2 in India, the lowest among developing countries. Hence, given the complexity of the issue, promotion of public transport is a valid but not the only solution in the Indian context. In the absence of detailed transmission information and given the debate on whether prevalent social distancing measures are adequate, there is an increasing paranoia of infection risk from using public transport, which has resulted in a decrease in daily ridership of over a few lakhs across Indian cities and, therein, an already poorly performing sector is at a critical stress point.
This underlines that there is an equal need to increase the non-motorised transport share by reorganising the causes of motorised trips in such a way that they become more accessible on foot. The availability of pedestrian infrastructure and enabling safe and secured walkways for pedestrians can be done by formulating city-specific urban design guidelines. Pune has come up with such an approach by increasing public participation in drafting street designing policy.
The magnitude and complexity of Indian mobility challenges needs a comprehensive framework that troubleshoots problems holistically. The high population density, growth in motorisation and brownfield nature of Indian cities, warrants a tailored approach suitable to the Indian context. As the effects of climate change continue to become increasingly apparent in cities, the underlying greening objectives of PT systems as a vital mitigation measure must not sway due to the pandemic; instead, it must be perceived as an opportunity for reducing financial burdens on economically weaker sections—who are the predominantly reliant user group. Formulating legally binding norms and regulations for gathering, dispersal and attendance strategies require major re-configuration from the private sector in addition to those already tentatively prevalent in the public realm. With initiatives for clean transport and ease of movement across all urban scales from macro to micro gaining momentum and count, the need for holistically streamlining the multiplicity of objectives as part of a comprehensive, mobility planning framework remains in resonance with the larger narrative of making Indian cities climatically resilient and is imperative for a sustainable future.
Additional Notes:
As most Indian cities are brownfield in nature, there is an alarming concern related to the prevailing performance capacity of physical infrastructure, which at present is either in the requirement of planning enhancements, major upgradation or fresh construction depending on the location, whether in core and nodes or as part of peri-urban expansion. Therein, a lack of monetary focus for making cities more climatically resilient from extreme weather events has resulted in major damages ranging between INR 900-1,000 crores annually and quite recently INR 3,700 crores in 2018 alone; surpassing the environmental budget for the same period by almost a third. The country in turn is presently the fifth most vulnerable in the world to the effects of climate change as per the Global Climate Risk Index 2020. *
Berjis Driver and Piyush Girgaonkar are Research Interns at ORF
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