Urban Transport in India : Beyond the Nano and Metro… and back to basics

I will definitely be there, it's going to be interesting to hear what he has to say in context to where Bangalore is in terms of its urban transport situation. While improving the Bus services, creation of the METRO etc may be solutions, I do believe that citizens need to take greater responsibility in the city's transport issue. Car pooling, greater use of public transport, discipline in lanes etc would work towards making our city a pleasure to drive in.

Anyways will look forward to his Friday's talk.

Tarle,

Agree with you.  These people do not take the politics of implementing this into consideration.  Appealing to people does not work.  That way there would be no need for courts and policemen and jails. 

I think policy makers need to add pricing wedges so that car owners pay the full social costs of owning cars.  You cannot mandate public transport (unless you live in North Korea e.g.) but you can set pricing mechanisms so that 70% of the people use it.  In public transport, I would include things like company buses as well.

Right now policy makers love expressways and elevated roads as they are very visible infrastructure (see how they show L.A. in the movies - freeways with multilevel grade separators and many lanes of fast moving traffic).  Car lobbies are strong and have the voice of the government; pedestrians don't organize and therefore have less political clout.  I personally would love to ride a bicycle for commuting for less than 10 km but am bloody scared (at least as of now) of getting knocked down.

Am reading up as much as I can about peak oil on the following sites - www.theoildrum.com  and www.peakoil.net. Another site is called www.wolfatthedoor.org.uk. 

I find theoildrum.com the most informative as it has a number of scientists putting up articles and responses need to be data based and not anecdotal (a couple of people I spoke to type of reasoning) to be taken seriously.  You have a wide spectrum of people, but the overall sense is one of doom and gloom.

Will post a document that I am preparing later.  But in a nutshell, peak oil means that oil production for any field will follow a bell curve with increasing rates of production, a plateau and then a steady decline.  What is true for one field will be true for all fields put together.  Path breaking work was done by a geologist called M. Hubbert King who predicted that the US would hit peak oil in 1970 and it actually hit peak oil in 1972.  Again it has not run out of oil, but the annual rate of production will keep coming down, because all the easiest to find oil has been taken out (close to the shores, close to the ground).  The deeper oil needs more pumping to get it out.

Mexico is past peak oil.  Indonesia is a net importer now.  A number of OPEC countries took up reserve numbers in 1980 as export quotas were dependent on reserves.

An added complexity is the ELM (Export Land Model).  Oil producers themselves face increasing domestic demand and with declining production, it means exports decline even more rapidly.  Importers will have to compete pretty hard and might could make right.

Oil prices have been steadily increasing for the past 5 years.  Note how there is no more talk from OPEC that the target price is $35/barrel.  Now the talk is that if it were to hit $85 OPEC will want to cut production.  The "proper" price has been steadily going up.  Some of this is due to the depreciating USD, but even in Euro terms oil is much more expensive.  When demand has gone by about 12% in the last 5 years and prices have gone up by 200% or more ($110 vs $30-35), it says something about supply.

A lot of sh** still waiting to hit the fan your side of the world.  Am watching with interest and trepidation.

Srivathsa

 Murali sir -  thanks for the clarification and the publicity. 

Tarle - amazing that you actually saw/heard Kunstler in person.  He has been at the forefront of attacking suburbia and all the ills (as far he is concerned at least) that it has brought - a car based society, long commutes.  he in fact predicts the demise of suburbia as oil prices shoot up (again his prediction) and global warming becomes a reality. 

What are the dominating themes as far as urban planning goes?  How does one move these ideas from discussion and concepts to concrete policies?  Bogota seems a striking example of doing so?  What are the other success stories where a dramatic shift has taken place?  What mechanisms were used to do so?  If disclosing any of his compromises your disseration, then of course you don't have to share any data.  Buut if there are any data that you can share it would be helpful. 

I will write to some of the contributors at theoildrum to see if they can post something at Praja.  It is important, IMO, for people to realize that there are limits to how much oil there is and why we need to use what we have left wisely.  

Srivathsa