Theme :–
- Traffic congestion costs 1.47 lakh crore per annum for India according a study in 2018 by Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
- Traffic issues cause so much inconvenience and frustration and hence need to be addressed.
Causes :–
- India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The average income of Indians is growing and thereby the number of privately owned vehicles is rising.
- Though public transport is widely available in India, still it is not sufficient for the population of India. Especially in Metro cities, often public transport services are crowded. So, to travel peacefully people are opting for commuting in their own vehicles. And as a result more vehicles are coming on roads.
- Lack of parking spaces is one of the main issues of traffic congestion in India. Due to lack of parking spaces people are forced to park their vehicles in front of the buildings often encroaching roads. This results in the less usable road.
- Poor quality of roads is also one of the causes. Often this leads to repairs and thereby reducing the usable space.
- Lack of proper implementation of traffic rules.
- Due to lack of footpaths in many places, pedestrians are forced to walk on the edge of roads which further increasing traffic issues.
- Regional inequality in economic development and creation of jobs is concentrated only in some areas. This results in the increasing density of population in metro cities.
Solutions :-
- Distributing and diverting traffic by innovative methods such as constructing flyovers in the busy areas etc.
- Improving the public transportation system.
- Making the construction of parking spaces and footpaths mandatory.
- Proper Implementation traffic rules.
- Increasing taxes on privately owned vehicles also helps, but attracts so much criticism.
- Developing small towns to prevent the push factor of migration to cities.
Conclusion :–
Traffic issues cause not just inconvenience but also impacts economically. Traffic congestion issue can be solved by multi-pronged approach. Government should encourage public to use public transport services by improving them and simultaneously it needs to improve the roadways to cope up with the growing demand of transportation. And most importantly government must ensure regional distribution of development to avoid the concentration of economic activities in a few areas.
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