WHEN IT comes to overall infrastructural development of the city, one cannot rule out traffic as its after-effect. Any city’s vehicular traffic situation indicates how ‘smartly’ it has developed or otherwise. In India, there are three cities that are almost at par with Pune as far as overall development is concerned —Hyderabad, Chandigarh and Bengaluru. However, there are a few lessons Pune can learn from its counterparts as well as cities that are considered to be far more developed — Mumbai and Delhi.

According to Christopher Benninger, who has studied Urban Planning at MIT and Harvard University, and has been advisor to the World Bank, United Nations, the Asian Development Bank and metropolitan development authorities on urban planning, compared to Pune or Bengaluru or Hyderabad, Mumbai’s mass transport system, in terms of trains and buses, is far more advanced over other cities. The New Delhi Capital Region, he feels, is moving quickly in the mass transport arena, and aspects of what they are doing with their Metro System can be a source of learning. “They are also leading in the interface between medium length bus trips, connected to longer distance Metro lines. Ahmedabad has pioneered the Rapid Bus Transport in India and they have employed advanced station designs, integrated with appropriate bus designs, making their rapid bus system

“They are also leading in the interface between medium length bus trips, connected to longer distance Metro lines. Ahmedabad has pioneered the Rapid Bus Transport in India and they have employed advanced station designs, integrated with appropriate bus designs, making their rapid bus system user friendly. But they have lagged in putting up a modern Metro system,” he says.

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Prashant Inamdar, Convenor, Pedestrians FIRST, states that traffic is a common urban problem in all major cities. As of now, situation in Pune, is probably better than other comparable cities but is worsening rapidly day by day, he says. A major reason for the traffic problem is faulty city planning. Land use, capacity of the area to sustain the level of activity and traffic and transportation network have not been considered in a coordinated manner though very closely interrelated. This has resulted in a chaotic traffic situation.

“Matters have become worse because of very poor public transport which has forced people to use personalized transport. The resultant drastic increase in number of vehicles much beyond the capacity of roads, causes severe traffic congestion,” says Inamdar. Poor design of roads and junctions with an outdated flawed traffic signal system coupled with under-utilisation of existing road capacity due to issues such as encroachment and poor maintenance of roads, add to the problem, he states.

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