Gurugram draft mobility plan must address regional connectivity issues

There is a lot of concern around the draft Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) of Gurugram, which has been put up for public comments by the Gurugram Metropolitan

There is a lot of concern around the draft Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) of Gurugram, which has been put up for public comments by the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA). But, what does the project consultant need to do to improve this draft?

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I think the draft CMP requires two kinds of upgrades. First is the content and second is a structural upgrade. When I say content, I mean doing away with errors in language, references, etc. For example, the picture used to explain the concept of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) on page 101 shows right-side driving which is undoubtedly not from India. I think it’s an image from the Brazilian city of Curitiba which is copy-pasted without any reference or credit. The average trip length of bus users is stated as 17.9 km, but the average route length of bus service is only 17.5 km. Also, the picture on page 149 used for showing a lack of proper road marking is from Cyber City, but in the document, the location mentioned is MG Road.

There are many other such examples, and a proper review would quickly fix them. However, the bigger problem is the structure of the CMP, and that will require a sustained effort to address. Let me highlight three such issues.

A CLEAR INTENT

The Central government’s toolkit on preparing a comprehensive mobility plan suggests that a ‘CMP is a vision statement of the direction in which Urban Transport in the city should grow’. However, the current document is anything but that. The drat CMP is very confusing as it tries to do too many things, right from mobility planning, operations planning, public policies, traffic management, infrastructure design and a half-a-dozen other things. In the end, it ends up doing nothing.

The fault may not be entirely of the consultant, as they will do what it asked of them. For example, the current notification on GMDA’s website is about a ‘mobility management plan’ while the document uploaded is a comprehensive mobility plan. These are two separate things. Therefore, the GMDA must first decide the intent. Maybe the city does not even need a CMP. Therefore, it essential to determine the purpose of the document before moving ahead.

ANALYZE PREVIOUS MOBILITY PLANS

Once the intent is decided and the need for CMP is established. The next things to do is to analyze the past mobility plans. In 2009, the department of town and country planning prepared an Integrated Mobility Plan (IMP) for Gurgaon-Manesar Urban Complex. The IMP is a 200+ page document with exceptional insights and ideas around how to manage mobility in the city and its surrounding areas. However, it ended up as a failure because virtually nothing from the IMP could get implemented, and a lot of other projects that were never a part of the IMP saw the light of day. Therefore, the question to ask is how this CMP will be different from the previous one? The answer to this simple question will solve a lot of problems upfront.

INCLUDE THE SURROUNDINGS

We need to remember that whatever happens in a city is not only dependent on what constitutes it, but also on its surroundings. As per the CMP, the 5.3km Yellow Line of the Delhi Metro in Gurugram sees a daily footfall of around 2.8 lakh passengers. The 12km of Rapid Metro sees a footfall on only 60,000 passengers per day. This clearly shows the importance of regional linkages. However, none of the proposals in the CMP have regional ties.

For example, page 234 shows the total trip on public transport in the year 2037. But, strangely, not a single trip goes outside the Gurugram area. So does this mean that no one will travel outside Gurugram in 2037? I don’t think so. The consultant did the analysis for the GMDA area, which is their study area, but this does mean that they should ignore the regional linkage.

The GMDA has sought public comments on draft CMP which is a welcome step. However, it needs to do more than seek feedback for the CMP to work because most of the people in the city will not understand the 350+ page document, two-thirds of which is in English or Mathematics.

One way would be to create a committee or working group with representation from people who have experience of preparing or getting CMPs done. It may include people with public policy experience, transport planners, economists, gender experts, etc. This group should be empowered to work with the consultant and bring the study to its logical conclusion.

@amitbhatt4u

(Amit Bhatt is the director- integrated transport, WRI India)