It is inexplicable why Kolkata, mandated by its clean air and climate action plans to reduce the load of toxic pollution and carbon intensity, is dismantling its tramways—the fully electric, high-capacity mass transport system with no tailpipe emissions. While the government has hit the death knell, the verdict from the Calcutta High Court is still awaited. The high court has formed an advisory committee to explore how to maintain and restore the tram services in Kolkata. As anti-tram policies and the elite’s disdain block a constructive agenda for revival of tramways, it is necessary to bust the myths about trams.
Myth: City authorities argue that trams must be removed to create space for the growing number of vehicles.
Fact: There is little evidence to suggest that Kolkata can handle congestion by removing trams and thereby creating more road space for cars. When the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) compared the routes where tram lines have been removed with those with tram lines, it did not find any difference in congestion levels. In fact, congestion remained the same or more even after the tramways were removed.
As per official records, Kolkata has 6 per cent of its area under road network—much less than the other metro cities. This itself is an argument for retaining and strengthening the tramways for high-capacity transportation systems. Besides, Kolkata cannot plan to allocate more road space to vehicles; parking demand from newly registered vehicles requires land that is larger than 200 football fields a year. Does Kolkata have space for that? Mobility crisis is building up in this city, which is spread over just 200 sq km. While road network cannot be expanded beyond adding a few more flyovers, this city is adding on an average 87,000 vehicles a year since 2013. If Kolkata ever tries to match Delhi’s tally of annual addition of 670,000 vehicles, it cannot hold that car bulge.
Let’s also understand this crisis from another perspective. Kolkata’s population generates 24 million travel trips a day. More trips get added daily because of the enormous floating population dependent on job centres of Kolkata. If such humongous number of travel trips are left to be self-organised with personal transport with inadequate sustainable options, the city will run to stand still. The congestion in Kolkata would be far worse without its diverse public transport systems—buses, trams, metro, suburban rail and waterways. The Census of 2011 shows that 86 per cent of daily work trips are by public transport and walking. Advantage of the compact urban form of Kolkata is short travel distances. But this strength can soon be eroded if policy support for increasing ridership in all mass modes of transport remains weak.
The transport policy of the city needs to improve people-carrying capacity of the roads by protecting and augmenting mass public transport systems. Increasing vehicle-carrying capacity of the roads will not work. For example, Delhi with more than 1,400 sq km area has put 23 per cent of the area under road network and it continues to remain gridlocked in mega jams. More roads are not the answer.
Myth: Kolkata does not need trams as it has a metro system and an expanding electric bus fleet.
Fact: Travel demand on all key corridors is already so high that one metro system is not sufficient to cater to that demand. The city requires multiple mass public transport systems to cater to the demand and the need of different income groups. Globally, other countries have combined different mass modes to run on the same road in a parallel manner. Hong Kong and Trans Jakarta have combined Metro and Bus Rapid Transit systems on the same routes.
Moreover, while the metro system is a rigid corridor, the tram lines existed as a flexible and at-grade transportation network, connecting different neighbourhoods efficiently.
One metro corridor though efficient does not connect origin and destination of most people who use it. As a result, the interchanges increase the journey costs making the system unaffordable. If tram is withdrawn and the roads get designed for the convenience of the movement of cars, even the electric buses are likely to face similar fate. The huge investment that Kolkata is making to introduce electric buses will also remain a non-starter as buses without priority lanes will become more inefficient and unattractive and the usage will not increase. Like the tram, the bus services can also get curtailed on congested routes as is happening in cities like Delhi. Such road and traffic engineering changes will permanently decide the travel choices in favour of personal vehicles. So, the focus has to shift from traffic management to road users management.
Myth: Land owned by tramways is wasteful; needed for real estate.
Fact: There is no reason the tramways and real estate development should be in conflict with each other. Globally, cities are integrating public transport with real estate development to be transit-oriented. Hong Kong, South Korea and Chinese cities have integrated buildings with public transport systems. In the city of Chongqing in south-east of China, a subway passes through a 19-storey building once in every two minutes. The transit line passes right between the buildings. Even in India, metro and bus transport corporations are allowed to combine depot areas with commercial development without compromising public transport services. Revenue potential of this strategy is enormous. Revenue from these commercial uses eases the financial burden on the agency by significantly offsetting a part of its operational costs. This also helps the city government to earn more revenue from property development, land value capture and other tax sources without compromising the system. Similar models need to be replicated for trams as well.
Myth: Kolkata can meet clean air and low carbon target without tram and despite reduced usage of public transport.
Fact: This is not possible. The Comprehensive Air Quality Action Plan for Kolkata, implemented under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), mandates that the tramways need “modernisation, further strengthening, and network development to build on the unique advantage”. The city climate action plan also requires similar pathway. This needs to be understood against the target of mobility transition in the city. The Kolkata Mobility Plan prepared over a decade ago had sought a target of 90 per cent of all motorised trips to be public transport trips by 2025. But the city is off the mark. It is possible to meet such a target only if all the mass modes—buses, trams and metro are integrated and scaled up.
Myth: Growth in car numbers is infinite; cannot be curbed.
Fact: That is possible only if people are left to themselves to self-organise their personal transport and the city authorities shed the responsibility of providing adequate public transport services and do not make the car users pay the right prices for congestion, parking and usage of road space for demand management. An older study carried out by the Centre for Urban Economic Studies, University of Kolkata had found that the cost of congestion due to productivity loss in Kolkata (such as the time lost during peak hours), annually cost about `2,66 crore. This amount would be much higher today. Therefore, public policy has to impose variable and effectively high parking pricing across all land uses, and introduce congestion pricing and other road usage pricing, to reduce demand for car usage.
Like the global good practice, the city needs to introduce low emissions zones to allow only clean air zero emissions vehicles and public transport usage supported by walking and cycling. Closer home, Bhubaneswar, Pimpri Chinchwad etc are moving in that direction. It is the hidden subsidy for car usage that makes demand and support for public transport so weak. In fact, in India buses pay more taxes than car users. This needs to be rationalised. The global good practice is not supporting car usage. London, with which Kolkata is often compared, could make the big shift because car users cannot enter the low emissions zone of Central London without paying for congestion, emissions and hefty parking fees.
The tram network has to be revived, expanded, modernised and well-integrated with metro and bus services across the city to meet an ambitious modal share target. Tramways can also source electricity from rooftop and ground-mounted solar power systems. That is how electric buses run in the African city of Dakar. This reinvention of the system, and not a requiem, will make Kolkata a front runner.
This was first published in the 16-31 October, 2024 print edition of Down To Earth