Reinventing the “Road Design” wheel

I do not have a car. I don’t even have the infra-dig two-wheeler, the human or machine powered. The only mode of personal transport I use is bi-pedal motion, invented about a few million years ago. Therefore, to me any improvement in road design feels like inventing the wheel. Yet, my patience is running out because much of the invention I see as reinvention. It almost feels like, as in Through the Looking-glass,

“[I]t takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” – The Red Queen.

 An article in The Hindu [1] discusses some measures “the Union Ministry of Urban Development wants States to implement for reducing road fatalities.” Well, it is these measures that invoked the Lewis Carroll story in my mind.

We put in speed breakers to calm traffic – if the Red Queen does not like this, tough luck – thereby possibly reducing accidents. Sounds logical, of course. But, the moment you ask who is the “we”, we get into trouble (the two “we”s in the sentence are different!). In 1971, the scene was IIT Madras (I do not know who is responsible for roads in Central Government Institution campuses). As I pedaled my bicycle from Mandakini Hostel to IIT gate, I had to negotiate a few speed breakers. Some of them were easy on my 17 year old back and some of them were not. The point is the easy-on-the-back humps did not calm my supersonic riding. I used to wonder where is the knife edge – balancing my back bone and safety.

But in the 21^st century Delhi, the “we” refers to the Residents Welfare Association of the locality. Here, it is always the backbone that is in danger. The humps are so high and steep, (my friend lost eyesight in one eye years back when he met with an accident reportedly when he was going over a monster of a speed breaker in his neighborhood that he was aware of). I have a sneaky feeling that car mechanics contribute to the cost of these traffic calming devices!

So, the powers that be have decided to replace speed breakers with what the article calls “Trapezoidal humps”. Well, the newspaper must have thought highly of its readership’s math literacy: trapezoidal! Anyway, it is, in professional parlance, a speed table.

The above picture is from the Net and must be from a western country.

You can also see this configuration along the now defunct Bus Rapid Transit Route in South Delhi.

It looks like the driveway of a posh house in the Lutyens Bungalow Zone! The bump rises up not to suddenly and lies flat for nearly the wheel base of a bus (the bottom of the chassis is protected) and comes down, again not too roughly. It does save the two-wheeler rider’s back, I must admit. But, it does not slow down the vehicle.

Safety is compromised, as I have experienced. A bus going on the speed table at full speed as though it does not exist on a turn and joining the traffic on the main road, in the process threatening to displace a three-wheeler in which I was sitting. And, this is the NEW configuration! The speed breaker, a foot over-bridge, a pedestrian subway are yesterday’s unsafe stuff; today’s is speed table! Now, do you agree that we are reinventing the wheel? Unsafety to unsafety!

Why, if the speed table improves safety in western countries (as it is claimed) why is it not so in India? I will come to it later.

The good people in the government are concerned about cyclists and pedestrians. These two tribes are vanishing. After all, the government says that poverty is reducing at a rapid rate. No one who is not poor will be seen even dead with a bicycle. And, in Delhi, there are no pedestrians. If you want proof, just try walking on a footpath along any road.

Yet, the government wants to “reserve” pathways for these two tribes. Whence the space? Oh, so easy. Just reduce the lane width from the standard 3.5 m to 3.3 m, the article says. That is on the side of a 3-lane, each lane 3.3 m wide, road you would have a safe lane of 0.6 m width for pedestrians and cyclists. This is what our traffic experts want us to believe.

Let us take in the reality. Motorized 2-wheelers do not recognize raised footpaths for pedestrians. Do you think they will care if you offer “designated” pathways at grade? By the way, this happened to me while I was waiting for a bus on the footpath, knocked down by a car as it pulled out of where it was parked, on a footpath!

When the lane width is 3.5 m vehicles weave in and out of lanes, if indeed they recognize them! Reduce it to 3.3 m it would not make any difference. But for the bicyclists and pedestrians, the marked space will give a false sense of security, only to be knocked down by the next motorist who weaves between and among lanes.

Yes, at 3.5 m wide the lanes are dangerous and at 3.3 m they are even so for the pedestrians and cyclists. Unsafety to unsafety, again.

As an aside, it is a common enough occurrence on Delhi roads, traffic will be clogged for a stretch of say 500 m if a vehicle has broken down, leaving a lane less for the traffic. Imagine the chaos if the available width is reduced by 0.6 m.

The article talks about speed limits, reducing it from 50 Kmph to 30 Kmph. I wish the authorities had consulted the newspaper Times of India which ran a campaign asking for an increase along the Ring Road in Delhi a few years back. We are interested in making things more and more unsafe, going beyond reinventing the wheel, innovating unsafety. Anyone who has ever tried crossing the Ring Road at grade knows that she risks her limb and life every time. There can be no safety, no matter how new your new system is, how advanced your recommendations are.

I can test your patience, if I have not done it already, by listing out a few more points and throwing them open for discussions; for example, on lane markings. But I will stop.

To end this piece, I will try answering the question why I am so skeptical of measures that are proven to work in western countries when they are applied in India. Lack of civic sense. Lack of concept of public space. Copy-pasting of rules and regulations do not work. No point blaming politicians, let me add quickly.

A vehicle comes with a right but no responsibility. Till such time the authorities acknowledge this, let alone get down to doing something about it, there will be, indeed can be no improvement in road safety in India.

We will be reinventing the wheel and going in circles. This will satisfy the Red Queen: We will be running fast but staying in the same place.

Raghuram Ekambaram

Reference

1.    Ministry charting out a new course in road design, Smriti Kak Ramachandran, The Hindu, August 10, 2013