Hope rides on metros

The inauguration of the third metro line in Delhi last week was a visible symbol of the investment being made in the capital city of Delhi, to improve its physical infrastructure. With the metro network (now nearly 60 km in length) set to nearly double over the next five years, India will at last have a city with a truly mass transport system. However, the entire city will not be mapped until the network stretches beyond 200 km (as it usually does in the leading metropolises of the world). Even the plans for a comprehensive, criss-crossing network have not been drawn up, and no one should expect such a network to be in place before 2020.

The metro is ideally suited for those who have so far chosen to commute by chartered bus, on two- and three-wheelers, or in small cars""all of which have been choking the city's roads. By offering a comfortable and speedy mass transport alternative at lower cost than private transport, the metro has become a travel solution for the mid-market commuter (but not for the poor, because of the cost of travel). Even upmarket commuters can be persuaded to switch to the metro, by introducing no-drive zones in city centres and by rationalising the city's parking charges so that the price reflects scarcity. Even without these supporting steps, the Delhi metro has become an example for other cities to emulate""so much so that the urban development minister has decided to make this a coordinated effort with a national-level supervisory body. The investment this implies, in urban mass transport systems in the leading cities, is to be welcomed. Delhi should not remain a pampered exception.

Mumbai has so far remained a functioning city because of its suburban train system, but commuter travel conditions on this have become nearly sub-human, as capacity has not kept pace with growing demand. Alternatives are desperately needed, as also the opening up of new arteries. Light, overhead railways have been considered, as also a trans-harbour link from South Mumbai to the mainland, but there has been no real progress so far and the Mumbai citizen continues to suffer in silence. It must be emphasised that while flyovers and expressways do help unclog the city's roads, these are not a substitute for mass transport systems.

Kolkata, meanwhile, deserves more than the single metro line that it has today, especially since the city is spreading into new developments both east and west. Bangalore is another city where commuting problems have got rapidly worse. Indeed, Bangalore is a good example that proves the inefficacy of flyovers as a long-term solution. The rapidly expanding Chennai, which has a relatively small suburban train system, could also do with new initiatives. The urban development minister is right in saying that a metro might not be the right answer for all cities, but all of them desperately need modern mass transport systems.