India boasts of 475 urban agglomerations as per Census 2011. Today, the number might as well nudge 625. The urbanisation index is on fast-drive. Of the 1.423 billion people India is proud to host, 36.36 percent live in urban areas today. The World Bank estimates 40 percent of India’s population will live in urban areas by 2036, contributing to 70 percent of the country’s GDP. Urban areas increase their might as islands of prosperity that become migration magnets.
When you think urban, however, the first big image that comes to mind is the chaos that one seamlessly associates with everything the term. Even as we think of our flyovers and brick-and-mortar and steel-and-glass workplaces, we also do speak of vertical cities that challenge the skylines. As cities look progressively vertical—Rajkot is a stark new example—the imagery of our flatter villages look all the more charming to those tired of living in towers akin to stacked matchboxes.
Our workplaces look congested as well. The better-planned cities have workplaces and homes in the neighbourhood as a luxury. The worse-planned ones have clearly demarcated central business districts, shopping districts and residential districts. And in this planning lies the chaos. Every morning, Mumbai wakes up to go to work and uses a longitudinal stretch to travel into the central business district. While the rich still find a way of living in this district, the middle class and poor need to traverse long distances. Busy traffic on the roads and in every other mode of transport—be it on suburban railway or waterways (for cities like Kochi)—is the new norm.
So my first column in this spanking new year is devoted to traffic and the city. If you live in a big city, you recognise traffic. You see it every day, you are possibly gridlocked in it on many a day as well. If you live in a city like Bengaluru, you possibly spend a good hour in it every day, if not more.
As India enters the second quarter of this century, it is time for us to sit up and smell the traffic. Indian cities are progressively getting into a gridlock of their own making. And we are the first to blame the traffic police system in our cities. It is not that the traffic police systems in our cities are perfect, but we need to share the blame as city planners and, more importantly, citizens as users of our roads and city-arteries. As the years go by, we are progressively writing a self-fulfilling prophecy of getting stuck within a ‘chakravyuh’ of traffic chaos of our own making.
Some recent data nuggets are worrisome. For example, the city I live in, Bengaluru, remains the traffic-delay capital of India. In 2023, the average Bengaluru commuter spent 257 hours on road during peak hours, 132 of these due to acute congestion. As of September 30, 2023, Bengaluru had 1.1 crore registered vehicles to cater to a population of 1.4 crore people. These registered vehicles use a finite stretch of 14,000 km.
Add to it a metro network of 76.95 km and there is a wee bit of decongesting, as the city thinks of moving together instead of one man in one vehicle at a time. There lies the big problem. Big cities think solo. Commuters love the ability to move on their own, instead of moving together in aggregated means of transportation, Mumbai and a few other cities with strong suburban railway networks being exceptions.
If you live in Bengaluru, traffic—not the weather—is the conversation starter. The new edgy icon of Bengaluru is the traffic signal. The best excuse for the late start of a meeting is traffic. How does one solve this? As all of us remain a part of the problem, it is time to become a part of the solution. Let me list a few simple ones. If only we were to sit up and press for their implementation, wouldn’t life be better? It’s all in the attitude that both we as citizens, and the traffic police system that is mandated to govern it all, needs to embrace.
Let us as citizens promise to abide by rules. We will not ride against the traffic flow. We will not ride on footpaths. We will not cut signals. We will not take a U-turn where we must not. The list seems so elementary, something every child is taught. And yet we don’t follow much of it.
Let’s inculcate traffic ethos in our kids in schools. When we learn young, we will hopefully implement it as we grow old.
Let’s not honk as much. Let’s think of every honk as a Rs 5 UPI drain, if you may.
For the traffic police, focus on preventive policing, not curative. Yes, there is more “fine” money in the cure when a rule-breaker is caught on camera, but preventive policing is more long-term. The common sight of a police team standing a hundred feet away from a signal waiting to catch the offender is focusing on the “cure”.
Active policing needs to step in and passive policing needs to give way. With the power of digital inputs, active policing can lay out a plan of action for itself. The police system needs to pick projects across the city and start with high visibility issues such as footpath-riding and salmon-riders who ride against the traffic flow. Collecting Rs 150 crore as fines in a year is not an achievement at all.
Why are our roads choked with parked vehicles? Make more and more roads zero-parking oriented. Bite the bullet. Become unpopular. This is not an election to score brownie points with. The best of our roads are only 50 percent wide. If you instil zero-parking on public road norms, we free up 50 percent of road space.
Bengaluru has 81 key choke points when it comes to traffic management on our roads at peak hours. Our feet on the street need to be on the roads at these moments, freeing up choked clusters. This is active policing. Policing is just too important to be left to passive policing norms.
Choose five roads every month as focus roads. Out here, the top brass downwards will be on the roads. The road is our mother, and the road is our bread, butter and caviar. We need to be on it. Citizens must see active policing to appreciate its power. The Mumbai traffic police has established for itself a no-nonsense feel. Every traffic user is careful not to cross the line he must not cross. This sense of fear is something that every road-user must have in every city.
Digital is big today. Get digital brand ambassadors to evangelise traffic police systems. Get in school principals, doctors, actors, business honchos and more to make sticking to traffic norms sexy. It is possible.
I think we need to focus on the solutions. Every city needs them. Bengaluru, the traffic capital of India, possibly needs it more than others for now. Let’s pull up our sleeves and get down to collectively sort it out. If we don’t, the future will blame us. Bengaluru today is traffic-shamed. We cannot have this going on forever.
(Views are personal)
Harish Bijoor | Brand Guru and Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults