Experts, politicos urge govt to focus more on public transport

“When the number of accidents across the world have increased by 8.10 per cent between 1990 and 2017, the number has increased by 58.7 per cent in India which is shocking. The State should immediately focus on framing a policy on two wheelers and improve public transport system so that more people opt for public transport,” the PMK leader said. He also said that all the State’s policies are skewed towards manufacturing luxury and large vehicles. “Our government thinks that if production of cars and larger vehicles increases, the economy will grow and hence, all our policies are focussed on improving roads for cars and larger vehicles but, a large number of people use bikes and they suffer because their problems are ignored,” said Ramadoss. Meanwhile, experts feel that government should adopt strategies to encourage people to use public transport. KP Subramaniam, a retired professor of urban engineering from Anna University, said, “There are two strategies to make people choose public transport. First, the government must integrate all the modes of transport and make public transport user-friendly.”

“Second, the State should levy congestion tax to discourage people from using highly crowded roads and should increase parking fee to discourage people from using private vehicles. Countries like UK and Singapore are successful in levying congestion tax and countries like USA charge high parking fee so that people do not take their cars for work,” said Subramaniam.

The State formed Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA) to integrate all modes of transport and to issue single tickets for people so that public can choose any form of transport but CUMTA has been only on papers till date.