'Pedestrians are being treated like robots'

Even as expert voices in the transport establishment sing virtues of big-ticket transport projects like the Monorail and the Metro, veteran journalist Vidyadhar Date demands fixing of the basics. He insists that transport policies should be people-friendly and not vehicle-friendly. Date recently released Traffic in the era of climate change, an extensively researched book on transport policy, which advocates pedestrian, cyclist and public transport-friendly policies. DNA talks to him.

You begin the book with the chapter ‘Car is the problem’. Why do you say so?
The car conditions your mind to give it a priority over human beings. We are psychologically sold out to the car.  There used to be no drunk driving cases in the past. The car drivers have become insolent now. While driving, if the other motorist is going faster, the driver feels that the latter is a lunatic; if he goes slowly, then he’s called an idiot. The traffic police also favours car owners and not pedestrians. Interestingly, in Germany, the transport department’s slogan reads: You are not stuck in traffic, you’re the traffic.   

The point is to fight for an alternative. You cannot say that there is none. It is fine to have an aspiration (to own a car). But, automobile society has a social obligation to create space for pedestrians. Footpaths and public spaces become an arena for social interaction. Human beings, i.e., their bodies, are automobiles themselves. So, they should be given priority. Since, there are more pedestrians (than there are car commuters), planning should be reversed.

In the book, you have criticized the skywalks scathingly. Why?
Skywalks might seem beneficial for the pedestrians. But, the basic problem with them is that they create more space for motorists on the roads. A street is a good promoter of community life. The assumption that there is no space (for pedestrians) is false. Detached from the community life of the streets, the space for walking on the skywalks becomes a dead space. Walking becomes cumbersome. The whole system is treating us like robots. People are forced to go to malls for walks as they are robbed of natural spaces for walking. In Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground, a pedestrian is confronted by a policeman every day. One day, the former decided to confront the latter. But, eventually, fails to do so. In a way, this metaphor illustrates the condition of the contemporary pedestrian.  

In what way the urban transport policies failing people? 
The human angle is not being taken into account while designing projects. Why create a problem of long-distance travel? Why should a person from Dahanu, for example, come to the city for finding work? These long-distance travel measures create a very negative impact. You should lay stress on prevention. Ideally, work places should be near. In the not-too-distant past, the textile mill workers, to cite one example, had their work places near their homes. People being forced to travel distances for work is wrong.

According to you, then, what is the solution for the transport problems of cities like Mumbai?
There is enough proof which tells us that public transport is much more economical. People should collectively demand public transport. In Holland, for example, the people collectively initiated the Cyclists’ Movement. Also, this thinking that things will not work in India needs to be discarded. The issue of public transport is as crucial as other livelihood issues since it has lot of other dimensions — social, psychological and physical.