Moving around in Indian Cities

Seven years after the National Urban Transport Policy was announced by the central government, the problems identified in it remain the same, or have worsened. Land use planning has not enabled the lower-income groups to live closer to work, road use is more dominated by private vehicles, and there is little money to improve facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists. This paper notes that though much of the basic data on urban transport in India is unreliable, there is enough to show that the challenge is to keep the share of non-personal transport at 70% as incomes increase in our cities. For this, walking and bicycling have to be made safer and public transport more attractive by making it readily available.