Why Ggn needs fewer cars, more space for pedestrians

Gurgaon: Around 30% of the city’s real estate is occupied by private car users that constitute just 10% of the total population, whereas around 50% and 20% are used by public transport and two-wheeler users, respectively. The numbers were revealed at a conference, titled ‘Gurgaon Roads: Boon or Bane’ held at MDI on Friday.
This was the first dialogue in a series of such discussions under the title ‘Conversations on Gurugram’ initiated by MDI. The data on the use of real estate by different modes of transport were collated by the team at the management college. Prof Rohit Prasad, who presented the numbers, said, “A back of the hand calculation reveals that people with private cars are the most privileged whereas the pedestrians are the worst off.”

The data has been collated from sources such as GMDA. Prasad said he has assumed that pedestrians take up almost no space on the roads as compared to cars, two-wheelers and public transport. The data further suggested that around 10% of the city’s population uses private cars, 33% use public transport, 27% are walkers and 30% use two-wheeler as modes of mobility.

The conference was attended by people from different walks of life, including MCG commissioner Yashpal Yadav, councillor RS Rathee, urban planners, students and citizen representatives. Sarika Panda, head of integrated transport and road safety with WRI-India, said that Gurgaon has a problem of over-consumption of private cars and the city needs to go on a ‘car diet’.

“On an average day, more than 60 lakh vehicles are parked in this city. The space occupied by these vehicles is equal to that of 100 football fields or sports ground. And the tragedy is that we don’t have a single public football ground in the city,” said Panda.

Talking about the government’s stance on the need for space for pedestrians, Yadav said they have decided to create space for walkers on all the city roads. “We will ensure that there is enough space for pedestrians and the non-motorised transport on all the roads across the city. We have already started a survey in this regard.”

The conference also saw a discussion on innovations in public transport in Gurgaon, social environmental consequences of transport infrastructure and issues regarding the proposed 16-lane road through the Aravali Biodiversity Park. The speakers included experts from School Planning and Architecture and IIT Alumnus.

Talking about the problems faced by the government agencies in making roads, Yadav also highlighted the issues in litigation and costs associated with the acquisition of land for building roads.