Filling mobility gaps: Learning from cities worldwide Premium

Struggling to connect and streamline its multiple mobility modes, can Bengaluru learn from transport innovations designed and enforced with much care in many cities worldwide? From seamless inter-modal connectivity to common ticketing to tech-based predictability of public transport, the best practices are not rocket science but doable without mammoth investments.

Struggling to connect and streamline its multiple mobility modes, can Bengaluru learn from transport innovations designed and enforced with much care in many cities worldwide? From seamless inter-modal connectivity to common ticketing to tech-based predictability of public transport, the best practices are not rocket science but doable without mammoth investments.

Yes, many First World cities are leagues ahead of Bengaluru in terms of public infrastructure. Decades of sound investment in well-designed roads, footpaths, safe intersections, crossings were preceded by futuristic town-planning that judiciously earmarked space for walkers, buses, cyclists and strictly regulated motorways. 

Having lost decades in poor planning, Bengaluru is playing catchup with mixed results. But what the city could do is first grab those low-hanging fruits: Boost the predictability of BMTC buses with basic technology that has been available for years, upgrade those bus stops with good lighting, seating and digital display boards, make footpaths obstacle-free and fast-track the suburban rail construction.

Spread out and with much less population than Bengaluru, Sydney rarely faces the extreme traffic jams that are a daily affair here. Decades back, the Australian city invested in a well-connected suburban train network that ferries thousands of commuters between the distant suburbs and the Central Business District (CBD) area. Built as a hybrid urban-suburban system, the network covers over 813 kms of track with 170 stations on eight lines. A central underground core covers 369 km of route length. 

Bengaluru is still in the initial building stage of a similar suburban rail network, which was first proposed over 35 years ago. Lack of a fast, reliable suburban train system forced lakhs of people to move into the city’s core, triggering absolute urban chaos. As the population soared beyond 1.3 crore, vehicular numbers exceeded 1.1 crore, severely straining the limited road infrastructure. Seasoned campaigners for the commuter rail are convinced fast-tracking the suburban network is the only escape route.

Unlike Sydney, Melbourne or London, Southeast Asian cities such as Manila, Jakarta and Bangkok are facing similar problems encountered by Bengaluru, says Sathya Sankaran from Citizens for Sustainability (CiFoS). “The car dominated infrastructure is continuing everywhere. When I went from Bangkok to Ayutthaya town, I found a lot of highways, but the train had very minimal service,” he recalls.

Jakarta, he notes, is a very big city with about 24 million people. “Manila is also very big. Bangkok is also sprawling, but they are all making the same mistake of not focussing on mass transport, walkability or cyclability. In Bangkok, the newer developments are very far away. The older cities are nicer, you can still walk. But there are no lights on the footpaths, it is dark most of the time. They are failing to build mass transport facilities and build transit-oriented development around it. Train infrastructure is being built extremely slowly,” he explains.