The aim of the workshop was for MTC to understand the latest developments by other leading transit providers in India like BMTC and JANMARG. The day presentations from Experts from ITDP and Embarq who have worked with these providers in the recent years.

The possibility of having a directional based bus service system for Chennai with the demonstration of the operational BIG 10 system of Bangalore was explained. The BRTS system of Ahmedabad was explained.

The methodology of implementing these systems was highlighted.

“In the last five years, New York City has transformed as we focused on improving mobility, introducing new select bus services, and treating streets as valuable public spaces,” said Ms. Sadik-Khan. “Cities like Chennai can learn from our experiences and start working towards a better future.”

Ms Sadik Khan & Ms Burden (L to R)

Over the past three years, New York introduced Select Bus Service, a priority bus service, implemented 260 miles of new bicycle lanes, and created new public spaces in key city locations, including Madison Square, the DUMBO Manhattan Bridge arch, the Bronx Hub, and Gansevoort Street.

While in Chennai, Ms. Sadik-Khan spoke about how NYC was able to use their existing road network to encourage more sustainable modes of transportation and reduce congestion. “Building more concrete, asphalt, and steel is not going to reduce congestion and make people’s daily commutes easier. Cities in India have to find better ways—more sustainable ways—for people to get around.”

In addition to the quality and diversity of the transportation network, the city’s built form plays an important role in making sustainable transport viable.

Amanda Burden, Chair of the New York City Planning Commission and Director of the Department of City Planning, stressed the importance of integrated planning. “Transportation planning and city planning go hand in hand. The city should give priority to connectivity among public transport systems and within the street grid. This way, we channel new development and investment to transit-rich areas and encourage transit-oriented development. New York City’s goal is that by 2030, 95 per cent of all new development will be located within a 10-minute walk of a subway stop. Today, we are already at 87 per cent.”

“Chennai should focus on good public transport connectivity, compact dense development around the transit corridors, and also beautifully tree lined pedestrian pathways. There is so much vitality and vibrancy on the streets already and these changes would further enhance but it seriously requires a safe and comfortable pedestrian environment,” she added.

The commissioners met with senior officials of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, the Mayor and Commissioner of Chennai, board members of the Chennai chapter of Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI), and noted business leaders from Chennai.

ITDP’s parking expert – Michael Kordonsky was in Chennai recently to conduct a day long seminar on parking. it was a run-through on his observations of many cities in the west. it was good to hear from so many around the table.

Co-incidentally at City Connect Foundation we are now working on a parking policy document with the help of CPPR. the study focuses on next set of policy changes that need to be put in place for a city like chennai to address the issue where clearly the demand is way above the supply.

Following article by Mr GRK Reddy, CMD of Marg Group appeared in Times of India. Mr Reddy is member of the Executive Committee of Chennai City Connect.

Tier 2 cities are fast progressing to be 2 million population cities leading to ever increasing urbanization issues like hygiene, pollution and traffic snarls.” says Mr GRK Reddy, CMD Marg Based on urbanization trends, India will require at-least 300 new cities with a minimum population of a million each. These will come in the form of existing city upgrades as well as new city development, leading to economies of scale and 30% lesser energy consumption. This is a sign of things to come.

For more from this article published in the Times of India click here

Following article by Mr Gopal Srinivasan, CMD of TVS Capital Funds appeared in Times of India, 21 December, 2010. Mr Gopal Srinivasan is member of the Executive Committee of Chennai City Connect.

CITIZEN CHENNAI - IT IS TIME TO DREAM GLOBAL, PLAN LOCAL
Taking stock of the year gone by, prominent citizens will write for TOI to present a fresh agenda for 2011. The first in a series of year-enders has a venture capitalist unveiling a policy framework for Chennai
G O PA L S R I N I VA SA N

To paraphrase CK Prahalad as he articulated Vision for India@75, aspiration must always exceed present resources. In other words, the vision must be a big stretch, not obvious how it will be attained. Let this be the first principle for aspiring Chennai.
When some of us industry leaders initiated Chennai City Connect (CCC), our objective was to help build capacity of urban governance institutions to deliver great quality of life to Chennai’s citizens. This aspiration should be bold enough to be not constrained within current reality and geographic boundaries. Chennai has always been a magnet for creative and hardworking talent. It has also had a conducive urban environment to nurture this, be it industry, culture or arts.
For industry and commerce to flourish, which in turn fuels prosperity and resources for a flourishing civic life, we need the best and the brightest. In a highly competitive world, this means offering employees a city that is synonymous with quality of life.
While we renew our central business districts and cultural spaces within the city, let us start a planned expansion of our boundaries. In the suburbs of Chennai, let us plan and build a network of roads with world class facilities, parking management, and open public spaces. We should also plan for adequate space for hospitals, schools and other civic services, not to mention solid waste management, sewerage and water supply. In this rapidly urbanising environment we cannot underestimate the impact of the city on the region and vice versa. Chennai needs a Regional Plan Authority and related institutional structures to ensure sustainable regional expansion of our city. At the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) we coined a catchy phrase-MAP-Marakkanam, Arakkonam, Pulicat—to help visualise this. Such a regional authority would logically encompass active participation of stakeholders from the various urban and rural entities. Such a plan should catalyse protection of regional water bodies, forests and other gifts of nature while further increasing the share of protected open spaces for future generations.
All said and done, even industrial towns like Sriperumbudur are about people and life. Women and men toil so as to create a better future for their children. Hence, let us plan to transform the Sriperumbudurs’ into world class self-contained urban spaces with excellent and affordable housing for all its inhabitants, public transportation and other urban amenities around a vibrant Chennai, the hub. We will have to borrow processes and know-how from across the world. Let us remind ourselves of Prahalad’s advice to summon the boldness to innovate and create the ‘next practices’ in city planning and urban governance.

Not to mention public toilets, trees and not to forget, cleanliness. In cities like Chennai this also means well designed auto and share auto pick up and drop off. Well it is easier to illustrate all this with colour pics and a good example from Shanghai.

Imagine walking out of this Shanghai Metro station. Note the police guys at the entrance. I saw them helping someone with directions too. Most importantly, the place is safe and clean. Many cities that fell apart, like New York in the 80s, did not pay enough attention to this. Subways were scary. Interestingly, solution to the revival of NY was born around the subway and had to do with feeling safe in and around the subway. (Google for Broken Window Theory in Criminology and Policing, James Q Wilson, Kellering).

The station opens into a clean and well kept public space. Take a few steps and you reach a very well designed and informative bus stop. Lots of mature trees to provide all the shade you need. No need to stand on the road like cattle for a bus.

Notice the well designed and engineered service lane for the bus. Bus driver does not have to struggle to get into the lane. Also passengers don’t have to be dropped off in the middle of the road. Further bus and Metro passengers can comfortably wait on wide islands before stepping onto the zebra crossing.

What is not shown in the photos are the footpaths, constructed with utmost care and thought, in all directions around this and all other Metro stations. You could be working or visiting any of the buildings around the stations, like hundreds of thousands of Shanghai citizens do, and you can walk to and from those buildings using these wide, clean footpaths.

Now imagine really bad footpaths around this Metro stations. Add some really pathetic bus stops too. It wouldn’t matter how wonderful the Metro or the BRTS is. Or how well done the seats in the Metro are. (Compare these photos with the situation around any Chennai MRTS stations and you get my point).

To learn more about Public Space and Public Life check out the three amazing groups of people who are working in Chennai with us.

Institute for Transportation and Development Policy
Gehl Architects
OTC Limited

The category of this post should be, I guess, Shaming Oneself Into Doing Something (SOIDS).

The road shown in the photos can’t be any wider than Anna Salai, Poonamallee Road or Jawaharlal Nehru Road (Inner Ring Road). Peak hour number of vehicles seemed similar to what we have in Chennai on comparable roads.

(Note the same road could be refined further. Very importantly, in other parts of Guangzhou, they have one of the biggest and most frequent Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) in the world, with dedicated lanes and advanced systems dedicated just for BRTS buses. Note putting buses and stops in service lanes slows them down which reduce the effectiveness of public transport. Hence we should insist on a full-fledged, gold standard BRTS in Chennai.)

The photos clearly show how easily they have segregated faster vehicles from slow moving vehicles, bus stops, footpath, commuter drop off by taxis and so on. Note the trees in the “middle” of the road. This is to provide physical barrier and more importantly, provide shade to slower moving commuters like cyclists.

One obvious benefit of service lanes is that it disciplines drivers coming in and out of buildings. They can’t just merge into fast traffic, usually perpendicular to the traffic. They have to go on the service lanes and merge only at the right location provided for merging. Perpendicular merging, or merging where ever one wants, adds to the chaos since this forces oncoming traffic to swerve away from the merging vehicle. Imaging when this happens thousands of time in a given stretch. Clearly this drastically reduces the efficiency of the road.

Look at the size of the footpaths. Now, are the Chinese fools to “waste” so much space for pedestrians? I guess not. By segregating fast moving traffic, they are able to manage them with just two lanes. Of course they have designed all other junctions and lanes, before and after what is shown above, well. This ensures that the fast moving traffic can move without colliding with people and slow vehicles, but all this with just two lanes.

Can we imagine our grandparents and elderly citizens walking on our footpath like the couple in the pic above?

Amazing what they have done with their bus stops. Simple but plenty of space. Also, plenty of trees around to provide shade. By the look of the trees, they have been deliberately planted. Not planted by the British or their ancient forefathers. More on this in future blog posts.

Like our considerate MTC drivers (and I say this respect and not sarcasm) looks like Guangzhou bus drivers also drop off their passengers at locations that are not formal bus stops. This is fine, in fact great, in a service lane. Sometimes when bus stops are too far apart, why not drop off passengers where it is convenient for them?

Now there could be an observation that there are hardly any two wheelers in the photo. Also the objection that, in Chennai, two wheelers would ride fast and rash in the service lanes. In fact the observation is correct. And here is where the authorities of Guangzhou have acted foolishly and in a high handed manner. By banning two wheelers from this and many other roads. Someone described this as fascist – banning two wheelers but not cars. I guess the poor in Communist China drive cars and not two wheelers.

Imagine service lanes in Chennai. What do you think an average bike rider would do? Would he prefer to go in the fast lanes or be stuck behind the bus at bus stops, behind some cycle, etc. in the service lanes? Comparable example would be the footpaths of Kottupuram Road, which is pretty wide. Two wheelers climb onto the footpath only when the road is clogged. Not when it is open. So designing the fast lanes properly like what the Chinese have done is important.

Veterans of Chennai planning/traffic/transportation bureaucracies often mention that the concept of service lanes is not new. That they had proposed this decades ago. One pathetic attempt, an excuse of a service lane, is around LIC on Anna Salai. Compare that with the one from Guangzhou.

Sorry for the tone of this post. I recently heard some sad excuses for why service lanes are not possible on Anna Salai. Bizarre explanations and the usual reasoning – X cannot be done in Chennai because Chennai is unique. Or X cannot be done in Chennai (India) because Chennaites (Indians) don’t have Y (Y stands for discipline, morals, ethics, awareness … take your pick). Hence this post.

Can there be simple service lanes in Chennai? You be the judge.

Learn more about service lanes and other road design templates from ITDP’s Street Development Manual.

Hope this would be the start of some important steps to arrest the shrinkage of the marsh and reclaim the lands now being encroached and being used to dump garbage. Current rate at which the marsh area is shrinking is alarming.  For more on this please read a very good report put together by Ms Jayashree V of Care Earth about the delicate ecology of this area.

Some of us have gotten so used to waiting at Anna Flyover that we failed to see an obvious simple design modification that would have a huge impact in this intersection. All credits to Mark, for his elegant design, the plans are already submitted to the Corporation, Highways and the Traffic Police and they are in the process of implementing it soon.

The Highways Department will submit a detailed proposal to the Government of Tamil Nadu for consideration.

The challenges and the constraints that Mark had during the course of this design; Statue! Median! Embassy! etc… is probably worth mentioning in a separate blog!

Here is a presentation to give you an idea of what he came up with:

The long-term solution, at this stage is only for illustration.

A snapshot of what is being suggested: By removing the round-about, and making minor changes to the median alignment, the design suggests that 2 right turn movement can happen simultaneously.  The Nungambakkam High Road traffic that moves into Teynampet direction and the Cathedral Road traffic that moves into Anna Salai can happen simultaneously.

About the Transport Consultant

The Lead consultant for this project is Mark Selvaraj who heads LandTech Engineers Pvt Ltd.