Abstract
What can the developing world do to address climate change? Can there be a solution that not only addresses climate change, but also addresses the economic agenda? In short, can there be a sustainable solution? The good news is that the answer is ‘Yes’ to all of the above, and the answer lies in transit oriented development. The question that then comes up is, are we ready for transit oriented development? This paper takes a look at Chennai, one of the four metropolitan cities of India and one of the few cities that has a metro rail network to assess the readiness for transit oriented development and analyses the issues caused by the current land-use patterns.
Introduction
‘Climate change is happening faster than we believed only two years ago. Continuing with business as usual almost certainly means dangerous, perhaps catastrophic, climate change during the course of this century. This is the most important challenge for this generation.’ [Jose Manuel Barroso]
Carbon dioxide emissions caused by burning of fuel in various applications is the chief culprit that has led to the current issue with climate change. Of the three main sources of carbon emission due to human intervention - transportation, industry and buildings, transportation and buildings constitute the built environment and their consumption pattern is a direct result of the decisions and development patterns of the architecture and planning professions.
Increasing development footprint and the resultant deforestation is the second culprit in this game of climate change. This has everything to do with planning of the built environment and its forced usage of the automobile. With the end of fossil fuels and no visible substitute in sight, it is a good time to take stock of the need for individual transport modules, especially in crowded cities like those of the developing world. It is a good time to take stock of the development patterns and address the planning issues that could lead to a sustainable solution.
Lack of proper infrastructure is another cause for environmental degradation in developing countries. Segregation of society based on economic classes has led to disparity in infrastructure and the proliferation of slums, squatter settlements and under privileged communities, which are as big a threat to global warming as any of the planned sprawl developments.
Sustainable development and the need for ‘Transit Oriented Development’
Sustainable development means ‘Simultaneous and continuous economic, environmental and cultural development over generations.’ As can be seen from all of the above explained causes for climate change, the built environment is the key ingredient to provide for sustainable development. Planning the built environment to minimise transportation of men and materials, designing buildings to reduce energy consumption in not only their operation but in their construction and choice of materials as well and providing a mixed-use mixed occupancy community that leaves no pocket of developed land under privileged would then be the goals of planners and architects to provide for sustainable development.
To achieve the goal of ‘Planning the built environment to minimise transportation of men and materials,’ the first thought that comes to mind is to create self-contained communities that are self-sufficient and hence reduce the need for transportation. Is it practically possible to achieve such communities? Aren’t the suburban proliferations of America an affirmative answer to this? Moreover, local geographical conditions go a long way in deciding the economic prospects of an area, and self-sufficient communities would not be sustainable in areas that have poor geographical conditions. Can development be ignored in such areas forcing people to move to more prosperous locations? No. Isn’t that the basis of our current issues in the developing world? Can people move to the community where they find employment? No, it is not so easy in a society of increasingly dual income nuclear families and equal educational qualifications of husband and wife to find suitable employment in the same community for both of them.
As can be seen from the above argument, transportation of men and materials is inevitable. What is then wrong with the current system of transportation that it needs to be revisited? And, how can the need for transportation be minimised? The answer to this conundrum lies in the fact that the current transportation patterns are chaotic and resemble a lack of planning. The dominance of individual travel modules is the chief ingredient of this chaos. This is chaos not only in terms of transportation planning but also in terms of land use development. Freed from the clutches of organized transportation networks, the development bandwagon behaves like a nomadic traveller moving from place to place in search of quick economic returns. The lack of cohesion between transportation and land use planning can only make policy decisions go haywire.
In India’s case, to quote the then honourable minister for Urban Development Mr. Jaipal Reddy, ‘India is one of the emerging urban economies in the world with a specific shift in terms of contribution to GDP from agriculture to tertiary and manufacturing sectors, thus bringing urban areas to the centre stage of the development process. For urban areas to be able to support the required level of economic activity, they must provide for easy, sustainable flow of goods and people. However, such flow of goods and people has been facing several problems of congestion, pollution and accidents coupled with lack of coordination amongst various agencies. Unless these problems are remedied, poor mobility can become a major hurdle to economic growth and cause deterioration in the quality of life. Government of India has, therefore, approved a comprehensive National Urban Transport Policy which focuses on returning the roads to the people which have been colonized by the vehicles. The thrust of the policy is ‘to move people’ and not the vehicles. The overall objective of the policy is to ensure safe, affordable, quick, comfortable, reliable and sustainable access for the people to jobs, education, recreation and such other needs in our cities. The policy focuses on integration of land use and transport planning. Unless planning of land use and transport is organically interlinked, whatever transportation measures we take later at best can only be a partial remedy.’ [Jaipal Reddy]
Transit oriented development then holds the key to providing for sustainable development. Transit oriented development means urban development along organized transport corridors, with concentrated high-density development at the nodes. Forms of organized transport corridors include metro rail systems, light rail systems and bus rapid transit systems.
The case of Chennai
Chennai has an extensive metro rail network. The Tambaram-Beach line has been operational since 1931 and was the first meter gauge EMU service in the country. In 1995, the MRTS system was flagged off and now a new metro system is under construction. However, for all its history and glory, only 3% of annual trips in the city use trains, compared to around 40% by bus [CMDA second master plan]. This number clearly proves that Chennai is not making full use of its rail corridor, and is therefore not an example of transit oriented development. What could be the reason for this, and what can be done to address this? Is Chennai ready for a change towards transit oriented development?
A closer look at the land-use pattern around the nodes along the rail corridor provides a clue to why the train system is so underutilized. The key to understanding the pattern lies in the first master plan for Chennai done in 1976. The main goals of the first master plan were to restrict density and population growth in the city, restrict industrial and commercial developments within the metropolitan area, encouragement of growth along the metro rail transportation corridors and creation of urban nodes at the termini, dispersal of certain activities from the CBD and development of the satellite towns of MM Nagar, Gummidipoondi and Thiruvallur. The CMDA also brought in land-use based Development Regulation System to regulate development in the metropolitan area.
As a result of the thrust provided by the first master plan, existing communities along the metro rail network started gaining prominence as residential settlements. A market street that connected the community to the railway station started to become an active centre for evening shopping, especially for fruits, vegetables and flowers. The places of employment apart from the CBD were situated away from the metro rail corridor, which were connected by the bus network. People who lived in communities near railway stations would either walk to the station or cycle down to a cycle stand near the station, take the train down to a convenient location, walk out through the market street to the bus stand to get to the bus that would take them to their work place, and vice versa. This provided a critical mass of pedestrian traffic along the market streets which tipped the development patterns on these streets towards commercial zones.
The Market Streets
‘Kada veedi’ or ‘Market Street’ is the traditional Tamil market place. Dating back to its emergence, these markets have essentially been pedestrian oriented. The temples were the focal point of the community, and these markets emerged in close proximity to the temples. Evidence of this can be found at most historic temples of Tamil Nadu. The function of these markets was to provide an outlet for anyone who had something to sell. The entire community descended on these markets, and provided an inclusive opportunity for economic sustenance.
In an anecdotal sense, the market street was the focal point of the village or neighbourhood. The emphasis of this space was on informal community exchanges. Frequently, these markets also included community spaces like the village panchayats. While the temple was a formal area, these markets were buoyant with life, colour and proved to be the locus centrum of joy for the seller and the buyer. In short, this is where the community met and social life thrived.
In more recent times in the newer communities, the shops have tended to line up on the main roads of the community which in many cases are the roads leading to the railway station. The pedestrian critical mass provided by two important dynamics – the connection between the bus and the train network and the connection between the cycle stand and the railway station have been the main drivers in the development of these market streets.
With the allowance for mixing residential and retail spaces, these spaces have tended to have a laissez faire attitude, and have depended on an individual owner’s requirements for its form, shape and existence. Add to these complex policies like the Urban Land Ceiling Act and the consequent fragmentation of property ownership, the variables and individual factors contributing to the development pattern tend to take exponential proportions.
While it is not a bad idea to allow market forces to decide land-use pattern, it induces a lot of inertia into the system. The basic mismatch comes from the fact that growth patterns of the urban fabric are driven by macro-economic policies and extraneous pressure while these markets and their land-use within a community are driven by the individual owner’s micro-economic factors and the neighbourhood’s intrinsic market scenario. In a rapidly growing country like India, this mismatch and the resultant inertia cause more macro-economic pressure and in turn result in the ubiquitous obsolescence of these market places, while at the same time forcing unhealthy sprawl.
This organic mode of development has caused, apart from the inertia to change, an illusion of saturation especially along the market street. The density of the built form is high, which in turn causes a high density of pedestrian traffic, thereby creating the illusion of saturated development. However, the actual built area and floor space available is very low and does not utilize the full potential of the location. This illusion of saturation and the resultant premium price tag has caused new development to move outside the city.
Social segregation
The settlement pattern along the metro rail corridor encourages pedestrian traffic true to the character of the market street. But with economic liberalisation, increased overcrowding and increasing affluence of Indians, more and more of the middle class and upper middle class people drive cars and seldom walk or take the trains in order to avoid the crowd. The increasing development of commercial corridors that are reachable by cars and cars only is testimony to the segregation of society along economic class lines.
This has resulted in a lower middle class brand image for the trains and the markets and communities adjoining the rail network. While the introduction of air conditioned Volvo buses at a premium price tag for the customers has improved the penetration of buses to different classes of the society, the trains have lagged behind in such a motive. The introduction of the metro is a step in that direction, but its effectiveness is questionable when put in context with the current development trends.
Current development trends have tended to focus on three main areas – Old Mahabalipuram Road, M M Nagar and Sriperumbudur. Apart from M M Nagar, the other two areas are situated away from the metro rail network, and as such do not help in overcoming the underutilization of the train resources. Development of residential areas in close proximity to these new technology parks is currently in full swing, which, when populated will create satellite towns around Chennai. [CMDA] Though this is a development which aims to alleviate the traffic issues of people living in the city and working in the suburbs, it shows an eerie similarity to the development of single-use American suburbs in the latter half of the last century. This is urban sprawl at its worst, and as Albert Einstein put it so aptly, "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity."
Conclusion
Chennai’s extensive rail corridor needs a boost in terms of the quality of the trains being operated and the frequency of the service provided, which then depends on the attractiveness of the areas accessible by the rail corridors that need to be of mixed-use mixed-occupancy types to attract a broader cross-section of people. Earmarking one square kilo meter around key railway stations as designated business districts and revamping their built-environment based on a form-based code can be the genesis for true transit-oriented development in the city. With a less than ideal built-environment that currently exists as can be seen from some of the pictures below, there is a real and urgent need to revamp the built-environment to avoid potential disasters. With its extensive rail corridor, Chennai is well equipped to stride into the future if and only if some of the current social and development problems are resolved favourably.
References
1.Jose Manuel Barroso, Time to deliver on climate change, The Hindu Sep 2009
2.Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), 2005, Draft copy of The Second Master Plan for Chennai, CMDA
3.Jaipal Reddy, Asia on the move: Energy efficient and Inclusive Transport, ADB Transport Forum – Keynote address on Indian Urban Transport Policy
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