Planning Transit System for Indian Cities

Abstract

Indian cities are currently in a phase of transition. Continuous urbanization and seamless connectivity is the paradigm. Proliferating bourgeois class is extending the demand for private automobiles. With limited opportunity to increment land use allocated to transportation and rapid shift towards automobile ownership, importance of transit system is being sensed. City managers believe that public transit could be an alternative in providing solution to ever increasing problem of traffic congestion, parking demand, accidents and fatalities, and global environmental adversities. This chapter examines the critical planning issues that need to be addressed. It highlights the opportunities and challenges these cities are poised towards transit system planning. The experiences from cities worldwide that have adopted transit systems to create compact city forms fostering mixed land use development are exemplified here. A ‘3P' developmental framework of ‘provide', ‘promote' and ‘progress' has been proposed to harness the opportunity.