Creating sustainable urban transport solutions for an aspiring Smart City!
Illuminem
February 5, 2024
It was a pleasure chairing Technical Session1 at the Society For Clean Environment (SOCLEEN: https://lnkd.in/d93ZMsdp) flagship annual event yesterday, at Vadodara (Baroda). This rapidly growing Gujarat city is a potential megapolis in the making. ‘Sustainable Urban Transportation Solutions’ is desperately needed to realise its #smartcity aspiration.
Like any other city, #transportation is dominated by private cars, three and two wheelers. The once significant cyclist population has dwindled and there is virtually nowhere to walk. A hurried metro plan is surely not the best idea as one heard from the learned keynote speaker Dr.@O P Agarwal, IAS. My panel members – Dr. Shalini Sinha and Dr.Nachiket Gosavi – brought out the deficiencies unique to Baroda and substantiated with excellent examples and data.
The Socleen Vice President Dr. Sanjay Pandit, a renowned physician, lamented the serious health implications of rising traffic and fossil fuel emission. Building overbridges, underpasses, bypasses and ring roads will not take us anywhere, he warned. And as the keynote speaker reminded – cities and their transportation systems cannot be left with engineers.
Just like all other cities, Baroda’s story of transportation intersects with brutality of their roads. It deserves to be addressed more holistically. Perhaps, therefore, it deserves benchmarking with sustainability index of global cities? Corporatisation of municipal affairs as it inches towards a US $ 1 billion annual budget? Last but not the least, return to an enlightened vision of Sayajirao which has sustained the city thus far!
All eyes on Prof. Chetan Vaidya now for an action plan to share with the city managers. A playbook in making for all other Indian cities and citizenry that moan and groan – confronted by the anarchic ways of #mobility.
#sustainability #urban #ESG
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