The unintended effect of the lockdown was the drop in pollution levels as vehicles went off the roads. Now, with the lockdown being relaxed, on the flip side, another unintended effect will be growth in number of personal vehicles shunning public transport owing to social distancing concerns.
With this new scenario, the Centre is looking at how urban transportation in the country can cope with the pandemic-induced challenges. It is in process of devising a policy to bring about changes in the way people commute. Union Housing and Urban Affairs secretary Durga Shanker Mishra has written to the states on need to reinvent environment friendly transport modes like Non-Motorised Transport (NMT) to lower risk of spread of COVID-19; lessen use of cash and tickets in public transport, and develop standard operating procedure for public transport systems like buses, bus rapid transit systems and metro.
“In order to avoid resurgence of car and other private vehicle usage, many cities around the world have encouraged e-ticketing, digital payments and reallocating street space for cycling and pedestrians through street closures, creating Non-Motorised Transport (NMT) priority zones, pop-up bike lanes & sidewalks, providing parking and charging equipments and financing options to make cycling more accessible,” the advisory issued by the Centre said.
The union government drew inspiration from the initiatives taken by some of the world's cities during the pandemic. New York has added 40 miles of new NMT lanes to support cyclists; Oakland closed about 10 per cent of its streets for motor vehicles; Bogota, Colombia, which has been inspiration for India's Bus Rapid Transit system, has added 76km of cycle lanes overnight. In Milan, 22 miles of streets have been transformed to cycling lanes, while Auckland in New Zealand removed on-street car parking and built up 17km of temporary bike lanes in addition to widening of existing bike and foot paths.
Promotion of bike sharing in China has led to 150 per cent increase in trips nationwide during lockdown and in UK, local businesses relocate road space for pedestrians to allow residents to respect social distancing guidelines, while queuing outside shops.
As a first step, the Union government has asked the states to make three markets in bigger cities vehicle free. “Million Plus Cities may select at least 3 market places and notify them for pedestrianisation. Non Million plus cities may select at least one market area for pedestrianisation,” the Urban Development ministry said asking the states to suggest the changes till June 30.
The various studies conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs show that about 16-57 per cent of urban commuters are pedestrian and about 30-40 per cent of commuters use bicycles in the country depending on the size of the city. Keeping this in mind, the government says public transportation should be devised.
The Centre has asked the states to formulate strategies with three timelines: short term in the next six months, short term in next one year, and long term in next three years.
It asked states to immediately map connecting residential areas from where large number of people travel and major centres of work. Here, temporary pedestrian areas, footpaths and cycle lanes can be created, and closure of one or more lanes or shopping streets can be encouraged.
As a long-term strategy, it said more cashless e-booking of bicycles shall be ensured by various means such as National Common Mobility Card (NCMC); create dedicated and controlled hawker zones along the footpath; stricter fines from vehicles entering in NMT lanes.
The advisory said promoting NMT will also generate employment opportunity for the work force in the industry. “As most of the urban trips are clocked in under five kilometres, NMT offers perfect opportunity to implement in this COVID 19 crisis as it requires low cost, less human resource.
The advisory said that transmission of infection through usage of public transport should be curbed by adopting the right sanitisation, containment and social distancing measures.
