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“The way humans hunt for parking and the way
animals hunt for food are not as different as you might think.”
― Tom Vanderbilt
“Traffic congestion is caused by vehicles, not
by people in themselves.” ― Jane Jacobs
While no need to introduce Jane to our readers
(one of the greatest urban planning book writers), Tom T Vanderbilt is an American journalist, blogger, and author of the
best-selling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do. Though I have decided
not to write about Pune’s traffic yet because of a column in a newspaper made
me do so as it said, doesn’t anybody think about doing something right for Pune
traffic! My first answer was, that’s the only problem, as in Pune there are
many who can actually think, & many more who think they can think, but very
few who act, that’s the main problem for Pune traffic! And then three news made
headline on consecutive three days, all related to traffic (in some way), one
was a senior minister made statement in press release (though in Mumbai) that
govt is thinking of trying Air Taxis (pd cars) as solution of traffic
congestion in cities like Pune & Thane. Second news was Hon CM, announced a
project of making tunnels joining kharadi to katraj (South East suburbs of
Pune) of Rs 4000 crores, saying it will make life of millions of vehicle owners
easy by saving their travel time (the later part is important) & latest was
High Court dismissed a public petition of making a road connecting Pashan to
Kothrud (western suburbs of Pune) which was (is) supposed to cut a biodiversity
rich hill in Pune. I thought it’s too much, at least I must write for myself as
that much I owe to this city. One thing, I am a civil engg with background or
environment & planning but I am not an urban planner, though there is no
such thing you can teach as urban planning by reading some books & this
statement I am making with due respect to all big names in urban planning! What
you need is, some common sense, understanding of people’s needs (todays &
future too) & a balanced approach towards life! I have that a bit because
for decades I have been working as a civil engg, living in this city, have seen
few other cities & am a wild lifer to retain my connection with nature!
Ok, first about traffic, then I am not needed
to be Aristotle to tell that traffic is caused by vehicles & vehicles are
the outcome of our poor urban planning & weak public transport
infrastructure. As why in the first place we need to use private vehicles, if
we start looking (read as planning) at the problem of traffic from this angle
then half of the battle is won! And then comes our attitude towards life
which we call life-style, as all over the world, public transport of a city may
be the best yet no Metro of Bus can come to everybody’s door-step & you
have to walk a bit to use public transport which Punekars are not ready to
accept, is another cause of traffic jams. Ask any Punekar, how much he or
she walks everyday to reach the workplace, then most of them walk from the
parking lot to their respective visiting place, may it be office or home, so
private vehicles are now as inseparable part of our life as our cell phones!
And with too many cell phones in use at the same location even the signal gets
jammed & we are talking about vehicles, what else you can expect but
traffic jams! So first & foremost Punekar’s start walking a bit &
plan your work schedule in better manner is what as a citizen we can do if we
don’t want traffic congestions! I know, this may not go in good spirit with
most readers as that’s the problem, we want solutions where we won’t have to do
anything special or face slightest of discomfort may it be water conservation,
tress conservation or traffic jams, it's always somebody else (govt usually)
has to solve the problem for us, which wont work, is what I will tell! As govt
& so-called public-bodies which collect taxes are definitely responsible
but, on that front, also as citizens, what are we doing, is I want to ask
Pune’s citizens! Have once we jointly ever gone to some public body or our
elected member as a procession/ march for our traffic issues, the answer is,
No! And for that first we as citizens must start respecting basic traffic rules
as right from not wearing a helmet for our own safety to jumping red signal,
driving in wrong lane we end up breaking practically every law of traffic &
yet we expect govt to streamline our traffic, great!
Now coming to the govt (Urban Development,
PMC, PCMC, PMRDA, PMPML, Police etc) aspect of traffic problem, the most
important aspect is, coordination between all these depts of govt & taking
responsibility for solving traffic chaos! For e.g., traffic police are at signals but signal controls are with
PMC. Traffic police can fine vehicles parked illegally on roads but vehicles of
footpaths they won’t act up on! As well CC Tv are there on many signals but
maintenance of these TVs’ nobody owns! At the same time when its about road
making then the road dept can only make roads but land acquisition for these
roads or bridges comes under different dept & giving TDR of land under road
again goes with another dept at PMC (or any public body). If any road is built
then next day digging is started by drainage, water or MSEDCL dig that road for
their purpose, thus list of such chaos is endless & eventually all these
contributes to chocking of carriage ways of the road resulting in traffic jams!
High time to define one single entity which will be responsible for traffic
management & that only will be looking after every traffic issue. Rather
high time considering the chaos (read as importance) we are experiencing on
traffic front of most of the Metro cities, a new dept itself must be there
which will have representation from all depts & experts too which directly
can deal with the traffic issues with authority & see that traffic remains
smooth.
Obviously any such type of idea takes decades
in this country to become a reality, till then make someone from the existing
system controller to handle the present scenario, it may be PMC, Collector, but
not traffic police for sure as they can’t be loaded with this burden! As all over the world, traffic police’s job is not to control traffic or
manage traffic but just punish the people who are breaking traffic laws, except
in our country, where traffic police are supposed to handle everything related
to traffic with no powers to act on it! I myself have witnessed a traffic police
sub-inspector getting scowled by none other than our guardian-minister (don’t
ask who & when) as he was shouting at drivers of wrongly parked vehicles
which unfortunately happened to be Karyakartas(supporters) of the said
minister! So, what you can expect from police at such times as right from
processions blocking roads to illegal parking to not allowing pay & park
systems on roads, traffic police are helpless! At the same time, seriously,
high time not to allow a single vehicle (except cycle) to park on any road
without being charged for the parking, or else we won’t be ever getting rid of
the traffic congestion issue! As the govt which keeps on increasing taxes in
every budget on Cigarettes, Tobacco products & Alcohol(legal sell off
course) because they are supposedly hazardous to health of the citizen the why
the very govt is not keen on charging for parking on public places (roads) as
increasing number of vehicles of all sorts are like growing cancer cells for
the city roads & the way overgrown cell kills the human body, same way
these vehicle named cells are slowly killing city roads & entire
environment & the traffic jams are just one sign of this cancer. Slow speed
of vehicles is not just loss of time & fuel but it creates more carbon
monoxide making our lungs weak & all these vehicles need physical space so
the trees has to give away to accommodate driving & parking space for the
vehicles so less oxygen, in nutshell slow poisoning for the citizens & we
all are responsible for this cancer of traffic!
Public transport strengthening is another way
which again always takes a backseat on the agenda of any govt as one Metro
won’t be solving all problems of traffic.
And last but least, is our increasing human
population because Dubai & Singapore like cities also have the best public
transport but concentration of population makes their roads also crowded with
vehicles, yet with two-fold therapy of charging for parking & increasing
public transport infra these countries are keeping vehicle cancer at bay!
Finally, our urban policies, which are focused only on TDR & FSI
consumption, making the city centres or some regions grow more densely
populated & add on parking for these developments while the roads are of
same width, which only going to make the city roads die faster! We may build more tunnels, flyovers, missing links of roads, use river
for transport (one more joke) & even air-taxis but unless & until we
don’t plan to reduce private vehicles’ use, they won’t stop growing, so the
urban planning must be focused on humans & trees than cars; then only there
is some hope or else the future of our city is smoky for sure, adios with this
statutory warning!
--
Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
Please view my sharing about finding a Right Home/ Office in Pune, at
YouTube link below & share if liked...
https://youtu.be/27j3I3rwGPQ?si=-ODYBxVI2Dl_C345
Please do visit my blog links below to read
about real estate & home buying!
https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2024/12/right-home-buying-in-2025.html
https://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2024/12/2025.html
Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345
For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below
www.punecorporation.org
Think Green, Think Life
www.sanjeevanideve.com
/ https://junglebelles.in/
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