Can Bangalore ban motorcycles ?

If I want to ride a bike, or a small car, or a big car anywhere in the city, why should I be stopped? Why should my freedom be restricted because of my choice of vehicle? 

Though in India such a suggestion might seem to harshly curtail one's freedom (since we have gotten used to practicisng whatever we wish & whenever we feel like it without caring much for other users), unfortunately, this choice of widespread use of individual low-cost motor-bikes & autos leaves all other commuters at a disadvantage, particularly the public transport users & bicycle users, who pollute the least & do not obstruct others on the streets as much.

Cars are more polluting if they carry single riders, but they are safer & do not obstruct or pose as much risk on the streets as do mobikes & autos. Thus, public transport can operate well on roads even with cars operating on the same streets, but if there are highly manoeverable vehicles such as mobikes & autos, the performance of public transport deteriorates much more severely. This is one of the main reasons why such modes of transport have been discouraged in most cities abroad, but our authorities are yet to understand this aspect, let alone take any action.

Why do we see so many bikers riding carelessly, jumping signals, speeding, weaving through traffic, and getting on everyone's nerves? Because we let them do it. Because the police lets them do it. And they get away with it. They cross the white line in a two way street signal, and block oncoming traffic, and we see a policeman standing guard trying in vain to push them back into their lanes. Why do they do it? Because they can, and we let them, and we let them get away with it.

If proper enforcement is in place, where atleast 10% of the offenders are caught, penalized, have licences revoked, vehicles seized, etc., then within weeks you will see people behaving better on the roads.

Though this may be partly true, there is more to this than just "letting them do it". For example, can anyone confine millions of tiny, small insects within a small portion on a plot of land ? Or can one confine millions of tiny fish to one small portion of a pool ? Enforcement of dicipline with highly manoeverable vehicles on streets is far more difficult than to streamline conventional four-wheeler traffic.

When we have some 1.7 million 2-wheelers on our roads, the only positive way the situation can be handled is to either create much more road space or cut down the number of 2-wheelers drastically & push people on to public transport. There are no options but to cut down the number of two-wheeler & three-wheeler traffic in the future, though presently, this might sound unrealistic or optimistic.

I think the comparison of situations in Dallas & Bangalore is unrealistic. Comparisons can only be made between like & like. Dallas has much more street space & perhaps a few thousand motor bikes (no autos at all) whereas Bangalore (& most other Indian cities) have them numbering by the millions ! Dallas also has better public transport & the public has far better driving manners than in Indian cities.

Motorbikes are too large in number in Indian cities since people are not economically well off & public transport is abysmal. To tackle the situation in Indian cities (in fact, in most third world, developing country cities) is to improve public transport & shift people on to trains & buses instead of trying to keep the mobikes & autos on the streets & then take on the challenge & try to enforce regulations more strictly.

As I mentioned earlier, enforcement has limits - one cannot try to fit millions of two-wheelers into a city's roads & expect enforcement to solve all problems when road capacity is severely over stretched, many times over.

If fines are made very heavy &/or monitoring becomes excessive, it will lead to unrest since poorer sections of people cannot afford to pay such stiff penalties & also, they are not disciplined to follow rules implicitly as part of their culture. This will have ramifications on the city's economy, besides being impossible, if not very difficult to enforce, politically.

WHY are they more disciplined? WHY do they behave better than Indian bikers? Because the penalty for not driving courteously and in a more disciplined way are too high. People in Dallas are not better human beings.

It's not just fear of penalties that drive them to show better road manners. With 100% literacy, they understand that it's better for all to allow right of way on the streets, apart from understanding driving techinques & safety far better. In short, they are a far more civilized society than ours.

With almost 100% of the drivers in India being illiterates (barring a small minority that is educated), it is clearly expecting too much to make things work by fear of penalties alone. The educated lot of drivers, being vastly outnumbered on the streets, also tend to break rules since they would otherwise lose the battle amidst the chaos. Traffic cops cannot be stationed at every intersection all the time to catch violators - several such "drives" have been conducted, all leading to nowhere since to sustain such a high degree of supervision would require an extremely huge police force, which is not feasible.

I strongly feel that the better the public transport, the better the city becomes. I'm merely suggesting that banning a class of vehicles from the roads will not solve a problem, but only cover up the symptoms and hide a larger set of underlying problems.

These underlying problems that we have will take generations, if not eons to change - we are talking about a whole nation here, if not a city. This is why most other developing country cities have chosen to ban the more maoeverable vehicles from city streets since they, being more nimble, will end up squeezing past other vehicles & criss-crossing everywhere, endangering safety on the streets.

Unrest amongst public for such reasons simply cannot be tolerated. If we do tolerate it, then we're encouraging people to break the law.

True, but again, we are a "lame duck" democracy - & politicians have consistently yielded to people's demands, even when they break the law. Apart from traffic chaos, there is also the example of building violations, that are now being condoned in most cities, & such violations are being "regularized" as a norm.

Bikers and car drivers are motivated to use their own vehicles because of the convenience. As we see the public transportation getting better in the city, we see people switching to buses and trains. We're already starting to see that. In a similar way, you need to give people enough of an incentive to follow rules.

It is true that a section of citizens in bangalore have got exasparated with the chaotic traffic conditions & hence have shifted over to bus services since there isn't any other choice. The worldwide experience has been that even when public transport is good, people will still try to use their private vehicles due to much higher degree of convenience. Thus, there have to be sufficient deterrents pushed into place, such as high parking costs, expensive fuel, vehicle taxes, congestion or cordon pricing, longer travel time, etc. to get them on to public transport.

I'll shortly be writing an article about a case study where a small and constrained police force (like in Bangalore) brought down crime levels drastically with a few simple measures.

I look forward to reading this - but I think this is likely to have happened in a city or town outside India !

Ashwin - The report is intended to be read in whole & not selectively. Banning a mode of transport is never for single-valued outcomes. Though all benefits cannot be quantified with data, the positives included the following: Reduction of noise pollution, air pollution, traffic crashes & fatalities, illegal motorcycle operation, impact on traffic order, theft & security, pedestrian environment particularly in narrow alleys & at bus stops, city image, etc..

For Bangalore, I think one of the many benefits would be a marked reduction of chaos on all streets including main streets caused by them, improved road safety, reduction in the number of accidents, safer pedestrian movements, in addition to reduction of air & noise pollution.

Traffic will continue to increase on streets in any city when economic conditions improve. The challenge is to recognize the negatives to society as a whole during this growth phase & weed out those that have too many ill-effects to maintain & secure the well being of public. In this dilemma, unfortunately, some are bound to end up as losers, & many growing asian cities have recognized that excessive dependence on 2-wheelers, though a boon for many, have far too many disadvantages & the ill-effects outweigh the benefits to society.

Some more excerpts from the report are as follows :

Last para on Pg.25: Although nearly 20% of motorcycle riders shifted to cars, the same percentage shifted to bicycles (in capacity terms similar to motorcycles), and nearly 10% walked. Considered on a per passenger basis, a low occupancy bus may be less efficient than motorcycles in traffic flow, but the buses in Guangzhou already had very high occupancy levels, averaging more than 65 passengers per bus on major corridors even before the ban came into effect. On a per passenger basis, a bus with 70 to 80 passengers (average peak period bus occupancy on major roads in Guangzhou after the motorcycle ban came into full effect) uses less road space than a motorcycle with one to two passengers.

First para on Pg.6: Motorcycles in the many hundreds of kilometers of narrow alleyways throughout Guangzhou had a major detrimental impact on the quality of the pedestrian environment, with their noise, speed, space requirements, emissions, and security threats. These pedestrian environments are also vital public spaces of the city. This negative impact is difficult to quantify, but the improvement in walking conditions throughout the city after the motorcycle ban were so great that this pedestrian space improvement is probably the main benefit of the policy.

Vikram,

Try this - type "motorcycle ban in city" on google search & see what it throws up - even many US cities are considering banning motorcycles.

Though cities that have successfully banned motorcycles may be few in number, there have been many that have been pondering over it or have been considering it from a long time (not in India, of course).

Whilst in India we firmly insist & believe that being a democracy, we must have the choice of using them, & may feel that banning motorcycles might be a logistic nightmare & something unenforceable, this is not necessarily true abroad anywhere (even in democratic countries).

If traffic rules can be enforced better in India, a ban can also be similarly enforced. It's just that in our country, nothing seems possible - people get away with anything & everything & argue that they have the freedom since the country is democratic whilst the authorities accept such misuse of priviliges & are left helpless for fear of backlashes by the public.

4-wheeled cars & other vehicles are much less manoeverable & cannot cause the same degree of chaos as can 2-wheelers & 3-wheelers. In this respect, some sort of order can be maintained on the streets, which is atleast much better than what it is now.

I know how Guangzhou's traffic was in 1997 & how much better it is now after the ban - thus, we have at least one example of a city that has greatly improved & benefited after banning motorcycles.