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{/googleAds} Long traffic jams, angry commuters, increased street fights and accidents, this is the scenario in the Taj city. Can anything be done to save the city from degenerating into a civilisational sink?

Yes, first major step is to respect the rights of the padestrians and the cyclists who should always get a favoured treatment on the roads. The second is to plan "mobility management" and not traffic management. Humans have to be the chief focus of urban planning, not vehicles and accommodation.

Highlights of the report by Centre for Science and Environment headed by Sunita Narain-

* Private vehicle usage in Agra will increase more than in the mega cities. While it is definitely an advantage that more people presently use buses and non motorised vehicles to commute or walk, thus helping to manage air pollution and urban mobility, unfortunately this 'walking and cycling city' is now steadily shifting towards cars and two-wheelers as public transport remains inadequate and unequal to the demand pressure.

* Very high level of killer particles in the ambient air Firozabad, Agra, Mathura have three times the highest critical level of PM10, NO2 is showing a rising trend; SPM and RSPM levels rising unchecked.

* The numbers of cars and two-wheelers have crossed the numbers of walk and cycle trips. The city is beginning to cross the tipping point.

* The city is paying a very high price due to traffic congestion on almost all roads. Traffic jams lead to fuel wastage, more pollution and serious economic losses. A normal commuting time has increased significantly during peak hours. On many arterial roads the traffic volume has exceeded the designed capacity and the service level of the roads.

* Poor fuel economy of buses: An analysis of figures available indicates that the UPSRTC has recorded highest decline in fuel economy in the country.

* Building more roads is not the answer. Look at Delhi. It has 66 flyovers, extensive road network but peak hour traffic movement has come down to below 15 km per hour. Cars and two-wheelers in Delhi occupy 90 percent road space but meet less than 20 percent of the travel demand.

* So far the walk and cycle share of Agra is high at 53 percent. Kanpur's is 64 and Varanasi's is 56 percent. To increase this there is need for policy support.

* Private vehicle usage share in Agra of total motorised transport is relatively higher compared to metros. Agra's private vehicle share is 48 percent, Varanasi 44 percent and Kanpur's is 37 percent.

* At the national level more than 70 percent of the investments have been made in car-centric infrastructure including flyovers and road widening, while investments in the padestrian and bicycle segments are not of the desired scale.

Parking Problem In Agra

* A very high share of road length comes under on-street parking pressure, close to 50 percent. This causes congestion and pollution. New car registration creates demand for land equal to 14 fields in Agra, 42 in Lucknow, 310 in Delhi. Where's the land?

Congested And Un-walkable Roads

* In UP Varanasi and Kanpur with comparatively much less number of vehicles have congestion levels close to that of Delhi;

* Kanpur, Varanasi and Agra  have lower walkability index rating compared to Chandigarh which has the highest value on this index.

*Agra like Patna, Varanasi has higher non-motorised traffic on roads, more slow moving vehicles;

*Agra has safer roads compared to Kanpur, Shimla or Amritsar.

*Traffic volume in Agra has crossed the designed capacity of roads which are heavily encroached upon and the surface quality is also poor.

Way Forward

Soft options have all been exhausted, says the CSE report. Reducing personal vehicle usage, upgrading public transport, walking and cycling and leap-frogging vehicle technology are the key options left for us. Plan cities for people and not vehicles. Design roads for public transport, cycling and walking, and not just motorised vehicles. This is the option for the city to cut killer pollution, crippling congestion, expensive oil-guzzling and global warming impacts of vehicles.

"All these years we have been planning for vehicles and see the mess around in cities. Its high time we began planning for mobility management in our cities. The rights of the padestrians and cyclists have to be secured and conviction strengthened to not to see these humble creatures walking or cycling not as obstructions but as nett protectors of the environment, who do not impose any burden and only minimise health hazards," chair-person, Environment Protection Authority for National Capital Region, said at a recent workshop on challenges of the emerging cities.

Talking to Samiksha Bharti News Service, Bhure Lal said "we need more secured and obstruction-free pathways for padestrians and cyclists. The authorities have to be compelled to ensure walkability and create user-friendly intersections. Each year more than 1,50,000 cyclists or padestrians get killed. Separate lanes need to be developed for them." Before developing a colony, a clear mobility plan for the residents, the transport system and road networks planning should be completed, Lal added.

CB Paliwal, principal secretary, Urban Development Department of the UP government informed that a separate fund for subsidising public transport was on the anvil. City mobility plans for seven cities in UP were being finalised. He said the JNNRUM had definitely given a big push to public transport in cities.

Since the second rung cities in north India were emerging as development-hubs and centres of high growth, it was necessary to plan for clean air and sustainable mobility. Luckily, 60 to 70 percent people in India are still cycling or walking but the share of private cars was increasing at an alarming pace. "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," warn experts.

UP cities have a great potential for promotion of cycling and walking but conditions favourable to both segments have to be created. Noida has highest share of walk trips and Agra has the highest share of cycle trips among the cities for which data is available with the CSE. Noida authority has planned investment of around Rs 200 crores for cycle tracks. Since a majority of residents in any city (not metros or big ones)  usually make trips not stretching beyond three kilometres, there is good scope for promoting cycling. The way to look forward is to integrate public transport with non-motorised transport modes including cycling, walking and para-transit systems.

Prof. Shally Awasthi, department of Pediatrics, King George's Medical University, said the threats to health came both from ambient air pollution and the indoor pollution. Biomass fuel in rural areas increased child mortality as air pollution in cities raised the incidence of diabetes and heart ailments. Dieselisation of vehicles is a newer threat, not being taken seriously by policy-makers even when it is known that diesel emission is a class 1 carcinogen, according to a report of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a wing of the WHO. This finding comes at a time when India has failed to adopt a clean diesel road map, prevent use of under-taxed and under-priced  toxic diesel in cars.

According to a study by 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.

The question being debated right now is "where will you keep the vehicles on roads by 2020, going by the current trend towards use of private cars that occupied more space and served a very limited segment of the population." In contrast buses occupied less space and served upto 60 percent of the population.

A recent study carried out for the ministry of urban development forecasts that smaller cities will witness massive share of personal vehicle usage in the future. lready UP has the highest number of registered vehicles : 13.3 million followed by Haryana: 5.4 million, Punjab: 5.3 million. Government studies suggest that the share of cars and two-wheelers will rise the maximum in the smaller towns. In coming years, parking will be the biggest problem in cities. Being the most wasteful use of a car, parking creates insatiable demand for land.

However, in recent years in UP there has been an impressive growth of CNG programmes. Cities like Agra, Lucknow, Kanpur, Bareilly, Meerut and now Mathura and Firozabad have switched over to use of CNG and brought down significantly toxic diesel emissions, despite the higher price of CNG in UP. Indeed the first generation action plans have shown some positive results.

Phasing out of leaded petrol, introduction of Bharat stage III norms, restrictions on use of older vehicles, use of CNG etc., have helped bring down pollutants from ambient air, but the need is for a fundamental shift in perception and introducing drastic reforms, was the consensus.

CSE's executive director research and advocacy Anumita Roychowdhury said "the emerging cities so far neglected in air quality management need urgent intervention and deeper understanding of their unique challenges and solutions for immediate preventive action. These cities are growing rapidly and threatening to worsen the pollution and congestion nightmare."