I've often mentioned the solution of Bharat's traffic woes lies in public transport.
There's wise reasoning in Singapore taxing cars exorbitantly. The country is so small that it doesn't have the space for more clutter. And actually we've failed to learn experience from the wise: the reason Singapore doesn't want many cars is per capita population and quality of life both.
Bharat, especially Mumbai's efforts are in the correct direction:
- Local trains connecting South Mumbai with North
- Metro trains beginning to connect East Mumbai with West
- Bus transport that has always supported across all directions connecting via main roads
- Autorickshaws and Cabs that help connecting the last mile
With all this, you wouldn't consider taking your car out!
What Bengaluru and other cities need today is to emulate this model just when you see population growth trend crossing a specified threshold.
Since not everything can be affordable to government, especially in the country with poor tax compliance as Bharat, you have to open up infrastructure and transport to private partnership and even majority ownership.
Cars and private vehicles then need to slowly be made pricier with taxes, to give residents the nudge to start adopting public transport. This will in turn increase revenue and make further investments into upkeep and upgrade of transport worthwhile.
In India, with its population, any public transport initiative will surely give profitable returns.
Private vehicles is a model for countries with less per capita population where it won't make economical sense to have (say) a bus run through a route with just 3-4 passengers in it!
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