not clear that this is such a good thing. i am beginning to think more and more that the car industry is one sick industry, that brings in its wake greater demand for oil (subsidized by the taxpayer) and roads (subsidized by the taxpayer) for middle class people. as for freight traffic, it's much more economical to move it by rail rather than by road.
so is it such a wonderful thing that chennai is becoming a center for the auto industry? i think it's hardly an unmixed blessing.
what about hybrid cars, you say? or electric cars? ok, they reduce the need for oil, but they still will lead to urban sprawl, wal-marts at the edge of town, more are more roads paving over farmland, etc.
it is not a good thing that 1 million cars are sold in india these days. until recently i was thinking it's a good thing. i have changed my mind on this. public transport systems including metro rail, subways, and buses are much better than autos. i think india will need to put in place the sort of punitive taxes that singapore does -- but that should only be after india also has the glittering metro rail system that singapore does.
i think airports and ports are good, and also that inland waterways should be used much more for heavy/bulk goods transport rather than roads.
Look east, young man
India, land of high tech and service? Try this on for size: heavy manufacturing.
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2 comments:
I fully agree that we need to concentrate on building up our public transport system. There is no way we can build up our roads to accomodate the growth of private vehicles. One interesting statistic I'd seen a long while ago is the ratio of road area to city area (I think the population might have been factored in too) for some of our cities. It compares very poorly with other cities. With that in mind we can be sure that the growth of private cars will kill us one way or another.
And yes we need to build up our riverine transpotation too. Many of our rivers are navigable a good distance from the sea but are not used for much. Barges and people transporters are not used much. I believe that they are more common in SE Asia. I'd read somewhere that they convert airliners into river boats for transporting people!!
In the US Congress refuses to subsidise Amtrack because that would be communism, nobody talks about the enormous (and unstated) subsity for roads because that would be too logical! We shouldn't make the same mistake.
Prashant
There's absolutely no doubt about it: India needs more public transport. No matter how good the roads are, the traffic density is just too difficult to deal with. New Delhi has taken the first few steps towards this. Cities like Bangalore, where the local gov't is probably flush with money from IT, should take the lead in developing some kind of city railway system.
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