Town planners in India need to provide more and more space for pedestrians and cyclists, in part to promote clean environment, experts say.
"All these years we have been planning for vehicles - and see the mess in cities," pointed out Bhure Lal, chairperson of the Environment Protection Authority for the National Capital Region.
"It is high time we began planning for mobility management in our cities. The rights of pedestrians and cyclists have to be secured," he added.
Lal, speaking at a workshop in Lucknow recently, described cyclists and pedestrians as "humble creatures" and urged authorities not to view them as obstruction to smooth traffic flow.
Lal told IANS: "We need more secured and obstruction-free pathways for pedestrians and cyclists. The authorities have to be compelled to ensure walkability and create user-friendly intersections.
"Each year more than 150,000 cyclists and pedestrians get killed.
Separate lanes need to be developed for them."
According to him, before developing a colony, a clear mobility plan for the residents, transport system and road networks planning should be done.
C.B. Paliwal, principal secretary in the urban development department of the Uttar Pradesh government, added that a separate fund to subsidise public transport was on the anvil.
City mobility plans for seven cities in UP were being finalised, he said.
Since the second rung cities in northern India were emerging as development hubs and centres of high growth, it was necessary to plan for clean air and sustainable mobility, speakers at the workshop said.
Sixty to seventy percent people in India still cycle or walk but the share of private cars has been increasing at an alarming pace, experts said.
"If speedy measures were not initiated right now to promote public transport, buses or metro, the looming disaster will take a heavy toll in terms of health hazards," one official said.
UP cities have a great potential for promotion of cycling and walking but conditions favourable to both segments have to be created.
Noida, at the edge of Delhi, has the highest share of walk trips in Uttar Pradesh. The Noida authority has planned an investment of Rs.200 crore for cycle tracks.
Agra has the highest share of cycle trips among the cities in the state.
Shally Awasthi from the department of pediatrics at the King George's Medical University here said the threats to health came from both ambient air pollution and indoor pollution.
According to a study by the Centre for Science and Environment, the diesel sulphur level in India is as high as 350 ppm. Only a few cities have 50 ppm sulphur diesel, which is five times higher than the global benchmark.
Many speakers pointed out that private cars occupied more space but served a very limited segment of the population.
A recent study carried out for the Ministry of Urban Development forecasts that smaller cities will witness a massive share of personal vehicle usage in the future.
Already Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of registered vehicles at 13.3 million followed by Haryana (5.4 million) and Punjab (5.3 million).
In the coming years, parking will be the biggest problem in cities.
But Uttar Pradesh has also seen an impressive growth of eco-friendly CNG programmes. Cities like Agra, Lucknow, Kanpur, Bareilly, Meerut and now Mathura and Firozabad have switched over to compressed natural gas.
CSE executive director Anumita Roychowdhury said the emerging cities so far neglected in air quality management need urgent intervention and deeper understanding of their unique challenges.
"These cities are growing rapidly and threatening to worsen the pollution and congestion nightmare," she said.
(Brij Khandelwal can be contacted at brij.k@ians.in)
