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Road Space and Road Density
Written By idontspam - 5 April, 2009
Traffic Bangalore Congestion Roads Analysis space density Traffic jams
While we are complaining that we are spending too much on roads, apparently, we dont have enough per this report
Road space in Indian cities is woefully inadequate: It is 18 percent of total city area in Delhi, 11.9 percent in Bangalore, 10 percent each in Mumbai and Chennai, and 6 percent in Kolkata. Ideally, road space should be closer to 30 percent
This has meant that the road density is consequently higher and hence more jams.
Equally alarming is India's road density. Hyderabad's, in southern India, is the highest with 2,337 vehicles per kilometer, while road space is merely 6 percent of the city's area. With over 10,000 new vehicles being added to the city roads (at least until the global financial crisis hit India), the problem is being compounded. The figure for Mumbai is 448, while it is 345 for Kolkata and 184 for Delhi. This is a bleak picture.
Are we wrongly complaining of too many vehicles while we are right in thinking we have too little road space?
COMMENTS
Naveen - 6 April, 2009 - 03:39
"Ideally, road space should be closer to 30 percent".
I'm not sure where this ideal is derived from. In the older European cities, such as those in Italy (Rome, Venice, Milan, Verona, etc.) streets are very narrow & I doubt if they have as much as our cities. Much better street space management & restraining measures has resulted in no chaos at all.
I think the road area percentage requirement would depend largely on how efficient PTs are & how few use cars. Built up areas cannot be pulled down easily to make way for roads. In a way, it is perhaps a blessing in disguise that we have less road space in our cities since PTs will receive more attention, which is beneficial for the environment.
I wonder if there are similar stats available for other world cities, just for comparison.
Rome, Venice, Milan - good examples
das - 6 April, 2009 - 08:36
1. Improve usage efficiency of existing road space.
2. Only then think of increasing the road space.
Our current road space usage efficiency is truly abysmal, and yet road widening is the only solution we can think of. I wrote this article on the issue some time ago.
Road widening - road to nowhere ?
http://www.slideshare.net/das_gv/bangalore-road-widening-road-to-nowhere
Public transport is of course THE biggest soultion.
idontspam - 6 April, 2009 - 09:23
It may be interesting to note the emptiness during the expansion was due to diversion in place during construction of BDA and Cunningham road underpasses underway at the same time. You should have walked over and taken a shot of Palace road at that time.
das - 9 April, 2009 - 12:55
idontspam - 5 April, 2009 - 22:01
TOI: Till 2011-12, an investment need of Rs 36,146 crore has been estimated, of which the BBMP can sustain only Rs 8,889 crore. But the infrastructure needs are too heavy for the investment capacity. Hence, infrastructure development activities with the help of private participation (Swiss Challenge method) have been suggested
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