Opinion - Editorials

Delhi on the move

IF THE OPENING of the Delhi metro was marked by chaos and confusion, it was largely because of the enormous excitement it generated — more than a million people thronged the station seeking tickets to ride on its shining airconditioned Korean-built coaches. The exultant reaction in the Capital suggests that the public in Delhi views the new subway system not merely as a form of public transport but as an icon of modernity and the beginning of a solution to the problems faced by harassed commuters in this traffic-clogged and grossly polluted city. Modern, the metro is. Built with the help of Japan, Korea and the United States, the Delhi metro system boasts of state-of-the-art features that are comparable to (if not better than) those present in subway systems in some Western cities. But how far will it go towards resolving Delhi's enormous traffic congestion problems? The metro's capacity to unsnarl traffic jams and ease congestion will depend critically on the speed with which the rest of the project is completed. The segment of the track that is now operational is only a little over 8 kilometres long, or only about 10 per cent of that covered by the project's first phase. It is only when the first phase is complete (estimated in late 2005) that the metro will start carrying commuters in large enough numbers (2.2 million a day according to railway estimates) to make a real difference. The entire project, which comprises three lines that will link far-flung corners of the sprawling metropolis, will of course take another two decades to complete.

Given that India's only other subway system is the 15-kilometre stretch in Kolkata, the very scale of the Delhi metro project is truly astonishing. But the need for such an ambitious mass rapid transport network could not be greater. The Capital is host to some four million motor vehicles, a figure that quite astonishingly surpasses that of Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai put together. The staggering number of motor vehicles coupled with the lack of a reliable public transport system has played a major contributory role to Delhi's chronic traffic problems and air pollution. Ironically, planning for the metro project in Delhi was initiated well before the Capital was blighted by severe road congestion with the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) recommending a mass rapid transport system as early as 1970. The failure to intervene at a time when building such infrastructure would have been both cheaper and easier is a typical story of Indian urban planning, which has often been shaped by present demands rather than fashioned by the needs of the future.

The Delhi metro has the potential not only to meet the increasing demands of intra-city travel but also to play a major role in altering attitudes to public transport. For this to happen, it is absolutely essential for the metro to be effectively integrated with the rest of the transport system. Although the metro lines have been planned along some of the city's congested corridors, the subway cannot take people everywhere. Its success, in no small measure, will depend on the success in improving other facets of public transport, such as Delhi's notoriously unreliable bus system. Only a smoothly functioning and well-integrated public transport system will reduce the reliance on private vehicles, which have burgeoned in Delhi and choke up the roads despite the construction of more and more flyovers. If the metro makes a tangible impact on the quality of air, then this will be due to the number of private vehicles it keeps off the roads. The 8.3 kilometre line between Shahdara and Tis Hazari is a small beginning to make. But in an environment in which urban infrastructure seems to only get from bad to worse, the opening of the Delhi metro provides a cause for cheer. It gives us the hope that it is possible to make things better.

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