Weekly Roundup 148 – 23rd to 29th December

FEATURE REPORT/ ARTICLE OF THE WEEK

‘Cycle-sharing, the next ‘disruption’‘
By Amit Bhatt

Ever since Mysuru and Bhopal launched India’s first true bicycle sharing systems in June, the buzz around cycling has been growing. In the last one month alone, there have been more than a dozen cycle-sharing launches, mostly through private sector companies, including start-ups and established companies. Additionally, cities like Bengaluru, Indore, Bhubaneshwar, Vishakhapatnam, Pune, and Delhi are following the government model of procurement to launch their own cycle-sharing systems.

Trends indicate that there are three main reasons why cycling might disrupt the urban transportation in India, just as ride-sharing companies like Uber and Ola did a couple of years back.

Read the whole oped here.

Published by Deccan Herald.

ONLINE PUBLICATION OF THE WEEK

‘Women and Transport in Indian Cities: A Policy Brief‘
Published by ITDP and Safetipin

The coming decade will be a defining moment for India as its urban areas are estimated to constitute around 40 per cent or 600 million of its total population by 2030. According to the High Powered Executive Committee (HPEC), around INR 23 lakh crores[2] is required over 2015–2030 for India’s urban transport infrastructure. While there is momentum by different levels of government in addressing women’s safety in public transport, urban transport investments are largely gender blind with a limited understanding of the interrelationships between gender and transport inequities.

This policy brief fills a key gap in urban transport literature in India by recommending gender responsive transport indicators, supported by benchmarks to set goals and monitor outcomes and outputs at the city level. Additionally, it provides good practice case studies for implementation guidance. The brief will be relevant for policy and decision makers at the national, state and city levels, and professionals. (Excerpted from executive summary.)

You can download the entire report here.

VIDEO / PODCAST OF THE WEEK

‘Chennai: 60 Years of City Planning: A Srivathsan‘
Created by Chennai Architecture Foundation

Chennai explored innovative building and planning ideas in 19th and early part of 20th centuries. Going by where it stands and how the city functions now, it appears that was not the case in recent times. What went wrong? There was no dearth of plans, big ideas, and schemes. Over the past 60 years, starting from 1957 when the first comprehensive scheme was prepared for Chennai, city agencies have drawn many plans. To name a few: the 1960 master plan, Interim plan in 1967, first statutory plan in 1975, Alan Turner proposal in 1980, draft plan in 1995 , and Second Master Plan in 2008. All of them promised a well-designed city with adequate housing, easy mobility and `civic design with aesthetic effects.’

If they have not delivered, what was the problem? Did the ideas fail or the implementation flounder? Chennai is set to expand its size and cover a vast region of 8,878 sq.km. A new plan is on the anvil. It is time to ask whether planning should continue as business as usual or radically alter course.