Planning in Chennai should involve people, says global expert

 

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

As the global planners are doing a rethink on automobile oriented model for developing the city, a US expert feels Chennai should embrace a planning trend that promotes mixed-use residential and commercial areas designed to maximize access to public transport, pedestrian and cycling infrastructure.

 

Peter J Park, an internationally known design critic, architect, and urban planner who has also served as planning director for two major US cities – Milwaukie in Wisconsin and Denver in Colorado – says that cities have to be designed around people rather than be automobile specific.

 

Interestingly, the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority has submitted a study on transit oriented development, a planning trend that promotes mixed-use residential and commercial areas designed to maximize access to public transport, pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, along the 45km metro rail corridor. “The report is with the government,” a CMDA official said.

 

In an interview to Express, Park feels congestion in the cities could never be eased. Congestion is all about the success of the city but then planners have to work to make it healthier.

 

He said US model of planning and development was automobile oriented and not people centric. It was now that the planners have realized their folly and are focusing on TOD, said the US planner.

 

He said Chennai has not gone to the stage where US cities have been and they can leapfrog into transit oriented development. He said there is a need to prioritise mobility like Bus Rapid Transit System, increasing connectivity to metro, MRTS and suburban rail station.

 

He says widening of roads is not the solution to congestion. “It is stupid to try to widen roads to accommodate the growing traffic,” he says.

 

He says instead of building roads, give people an alternative so that they don’t have to drive so far to get their basic amenities. Prioritise short trips over long trips, he says.

 

Interestingly, for any model to be successful, it requires public participation. “If the public participation is not there who cares whether the master plan is tampered or changed,” he says.

 

Congestion in Chennai won’t ease totally. It is going to stay but then we have to offer people wider range of choices like transit oriented development so that it can atleast ease.

 

In every city people have bag load of problems but then planners should not ignore it but should work on what kind of city one aspires to have, he said.

 

Park is also critical of the floor space index conceptn in Chennai. “Get rid of it. It is a dumb system. It is being used by bureaucrats and planners. It makes cities more complicated,” he says.