The chat room: It's about moving people, not vehicles, says Naresh Narasimhan

“The key to public transport is not to move vehicles, but to move people," said architect Naresh Narasimhan, over a cup of coffee at his office in Langford Garden on Saturday morning.

"You can try to do the latter, but congestion will take over at some point, so it's one flyover after another. When does it end?" The answer seems fairly simple: a robust public transport system.

And if the popularity of Namma Metro is anything to go by, (Narasimhan points out that it has caused a dramatic decrease in the number of two-wheelers on the roads) it's a change the city is ready to make.

"Let's start by defining public transport. It means transport that can be used by a multiplicity of people for different needs." Why does this require explanation at all? "State-owned buses, trains, autos and taxis are all public transport, although the government tends to ignore the latter, treating them as profit-making ventures instead. In fact, they see even BMTC this way! And the bottom line, really, of using public transport is to get from one place to another efficiently, quickly and affordably."

Needless to say, this is an area in which the city is woefully lacking, causing the resultant chaos on our roads. "The only way to deal with it is to limit the number of vehicles, which means providing disincentives – raise tax, make bus fares cheaper. You shouldn't want to bring your bike out for a trip longer than 2 km," said Narasimhan, quoting Enrique Penalosa, former mayor of Bogota, who remarked, "An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport."

The numbers are staggering. Bengaluru has a vehicular population of about 65 lakh - 45 lakh two-wheelers, 12 lakh cars (including private taxis). Autos and buses make up the remainder.

"That means every second person in Bengaluru owns a vehicle, as compared to cities like Berlin, where the private vehicle to population ratio is more like 1:30!" said Narasimhan.

"On the other hand, we have around 6300 buses, a minuscule number, but the highest in the country! They use about 0.2 percent of road space and account for half of the city's daily trips (measured in terms of Passenger Car Units. That's why we have been pushing for more buses and cheaper fares. If you could take a bus or a train to work at half the cost of a bike, what would you choose?"

All this seems logical, and as Narasimhan puts it, "There's no need to reinvent the wheel. I'm not saying anything that hasn't been heard before." So what's getting in the way?

"Unfortunately, the city is not designed by architects and urban designers. It's a nexus involving transport planners, infrastructure companies and real estate developers (in a benign way). The transport planner's fundamental principle is to make traffic move faster. The architect wants a lovely city for people to live in, which means transport moves slowly. We don't want accidents or hooligans zipping around the place," he said, adding with a laugh, "We don't want any transport, ideally, but we can't avoid it!"

Public transport, Narasimhan emphasises, begins with pedestrian facilities. "After that comes non-motorised transport. At the moment, cyclists ride between the parked cars, next to heavy vehicles. Their job is to make sure that parked cars don't get scratched! The hierarchy of public transport goes like this - the pavement comes first, followed by a lane for non-motorised transport. Then come the parked cars and finally, the moving vehicles."

Of course, every solution is fraught with complications: "To build good roads and footpaths, the utilities that lie beneath them need to be perfected, like TenderSURE is attempting to do. Heavy infrastructure work means removing trees, which drives environmentalists crazy! There's no question of a cut-and-paste solution from somewhere else. "The situation is being approached from the wrong direction, with private vehicles being prioritised over pavements," Narasimhan said, concluding with a laugh, "We have a popular saying in Kannada to describe people who don’t have anything to do — ‘c/o footpath’. Maybe we should take another look at that philosophy!”