Subir Roy: Push buses in the south

OFFBEAT

The case for buses run on CNG and against private personal transport should be self-evident. Buses make for optimum use of road space and minimum energy consumption and emission per traveller. They are also part of a more egalitarian way of life. That is why BRT, which gives the traveller the most out of buses, has already been introduced in Asian capitals like Seoul, Djakarta and Taipei. They are also planned for London and New York's Manhattan.

How mainstream preference for buses has become is indicated by what Boris Johnson, the newly elected Conservative mayor of London, said on assuming office. He promised to improve the bus system. So Labour mayor Ken Livingstone may have been defeated but that's got nothing to do with having more and better buses on the city's roads to reduce congestion and pollution and make the city more pleasantly livable.

If the whole world is moving in one direction but sections of India's middle class have got their heads turned firmly the other way, then that highlights the long hard struggle ahead of those who believe not just in buses but lower pollution, a less resource-intensive way of life and protection of the environment. Unfortunately, a majority of even educated Indians are wedded to aspirations that were the norm fifty years ago.

Lack of commitment to the idea of bus travel has prompted most car-owning Delhiites to throw the baby out with the bath water, reject the idea of BRT on seeing the mad confusion it created when it was introduced without adequate preparation. Absences of proper signage, the police both not knowing and caring, are some of the specific culprits. The simple resolve should be, let's do it better and right, instead of giving up the idea altogether.

The contrast with London is again striking. Johnson, on taking over, has not even overturned the key idea of his predecessor, levying of a congestion charge for car drivers entering central London. He has instead promised to reform and improve the way the charge is administered.

There is a good reason each why Delhi should and should not have been have been the first Indian city to try out BRT. It has more road space than most, so is ideally placed to set aside some for buses. But Delhi lacks the experience of a good clean and efficient bus system like Mumbai does and so Delhiites have difficulty in taking ownership of buses.

For a middle-class person, it is almost socially embarrassing to be seen on a bus in Delhi. Social attitude to buses is the opposite in Kolkata. The sense of enterprise and aggression that enables Delhiites to get things done faster than almost anybody else unfortunately makes them want to benchmark their upward mobility against first owning a two-wheeler and then a car.

It would be a great pity if the whole idea of more travel by bus in cities suffers a setback with what many see as the looming failure of BRT. Proper space for people to walk and dedicated space for cyclists, who need such space more than anyone else, go hand in hand with reserved space for buses.

The case for buses is, of course, not entirely predicated on BRT. It is difficult to set aside such road space in a city like Bangalore whose city centre roads are among the narrowest. Those in authority can push the case for buses by initially simply putting on road more and better buses. In the short run this can even raise congestion. But my sense is that as soon as people find that there is a clean, frequent and extended bus system, they will begin to use it more by leaving their own transport behind at home. Once a better bus system is available, a tax on private transport, as in Singapore, is needed to discourage it. This can relieve the congestion.

In fact this first step should very logically be extensively taken in the south where people are very careful about their money and think twice before showing off. In fact, Chennai's bus system is extensively used though the service is not the same in every corner of it. Bangalore has the unique distinction of having given itself a vastly better bus service in the last ten years. The irony is that in leftist Kolkata, the quality of a bus ride has gone down even as private buses have proliferated, but in non-left ruled Bangalore a public sector bus system has rapidly grown in the same period. And wonder of wonders, its operations actually run at a profit.

It may be a good idea to push bus travel and BRT more in the south initially, have a success to show and then take it to Delhi which is often a laggard in social attitudes.

subir.roy@bsmail.in