NEW DELHI: Introducing an element of planning in Indian cities’ transportation, Urban Development Ministry has come out with a multi-pronged policy framework called Transit Oriented Development. The policy will enable people to live within walking or cycling distance from transit corridors like the Metros, Monorail and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridors, currently being taken up on a large scale. It will also help people in connecting with different public transport.
The Ministry has formulated a ‘National Transit Oriented Development Policy’ which seeks to enhance the depth of understanding of States and UTs on TOD as a viable solution to many of the challenges like haphazard urban growth and sprawl, mobility, rapidly rising private vehicles on roads, pollution, housing choices among others. This new urban design and planning in the form of TOD, is being incentivized by the Ministry under two more initiatives like, 'Metro Policy' and 'Green Urban Mobility Scheme' which also will be discussed with States and UTs for taking them on board.
Under TOD, city densification will be promoted along mass transit corridors through vertical construction by substantially enhancing FARs (Floor Area Ratio) backed by promotion of Non-motorised Transport Infrastructure for walking and cycling to transport stations, development of street networks in the influence zone of transit corridors, multi-modal integration, effective first and last mile connectivity through feeder services to enable people access public transit in 5 to 10 minutes from home and work places.