Making Transit-Oriented Urban Development Work
Rutul Joshi
(This article was originally published in Hindustan Times on 3rd Sept 2024 and is available on this link )
Transit-oriented development (TOD) has been, for some years now, the most popular urban planning concept discussed in Union budgets. The term has been mentioned five times in budget speeches since the 2019-20 one. This year’s budget speech also mentioned it. Working on TOD planning over the past several years, one was thrilled to hear about it the first three times. Then, it got tiresome, especially when nothing much seemed to follow in terms of on-ground implementation.
Before the term became popular in the finance ministry, a national TOD policy was formulated in 2017 by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. Indeed, a report by the parliamentary standing committee on housing and urban affairs reads, “The Committee recommends the Ministry to exhort, persuade, and prod the state governments to implement Transit Oriented Development along metro stations in respective states.” Such a choice of words indicates the desperation felt in implementing transit-oriented development in our cities.
The concept denotes planning for an increased quantum of living, working, and shopping options near transit stations. This promotes public transport use and minimizes travel distances within the city. The plan is to develop transit-influencing zones that are compact, dense, mixed-use, and diverse. There is also a need for more open spaces, social infrastructure, wide footpaths, and active frontages of buildings to attract and accommodate a high volume of people using these areas. TOD is not merely about tall buildings near transit points. People need better access and more choices to travel in the city, and the transit systems need commuters. The concept represents a sweet deal between the two. When implemented right, it helps reduce carbon emissions and improve liveability.
However, it is a long road to meaningfully implementing transit-oriented development in our cities. Here are the three key areas that need work.
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One, TOD is losing its competitive advantage against highway-oriented development. With the introduction of the TOD a few years ago, floor area ratio norms were liberalized near transit stations or transit corridors. The logic was to give the advantage of rejuvenation and redevelopment to the areas where the transit supply is stronger. Cities like London determine their floor space supply based on public transit accessibility levels. Contrary to this, many Indian cities like Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Gurugram have started incentivizing estate projects around wider roads and highways.
Today, highway-oriented development outcompetes transit-oriented development in many cities. Why would developers invest in a middle-of-the-city, messy redevelopment project if they profit more from peripheral land development with smaller investments? As we have seen in the past, these highways and wider roads in the peripheries get congested in just a few years. People living in the peripheries get used to their vehicle-centric lifestyle and demand more flyovers and free parking. The advantage in favor of transit-oriented cities needs to be restored.
Two, there is a lack of coordination and joint planning between transit agencies and cities’ planning authorities. Policymakers want the metro rail system to make money to recover massive investments made, at least partly. The metro system can make money by increasing ridership and selling development rights near transit stations. This can be done with efficient TOD planning. At present, development rights are monopolized by the planning authorities in our system. Years of conflicts and lack of coordination between transit agencies like the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation and civic planning authorities like the Delhi Development Authority are well known. In every large city where metro rail is planned, there is a lack of coordination or squabbles over revenue-sharing between the transit agency and the planning authority. The planning authority is not obliged to share its floorspace sale revenue with the transit agency. Transit agencies often behave too exclusively in coordinating with local authorities. Our cities need joint planning mechanisms where the land and the transit agencies are mandated to work together.
Three, our current planning system needs reform to accommodate TOD. Urban planning practices today are laden with a command-and-control approach and pseudo-scientific norms. The new approach to planning is about promoting compact development to accommodate the growing population and not controlling the urban land excessively. Beyond the reforms in planning mechanisms and procedures, much work is required to change the mindsets and embedded institutional culture. Transit-oriented development needs to be featured prominently in the city’s master plans and not be relegated to just policy documents. We need to reduce supply-side constraints of serviced land and and restore the advantage of redevelopment projects near transit.
Transit-oriented development is not limited to making money from tall buildings near transit but also concerns sustainably improving accessibility and liveability in our cities. There is much to be done on urban planning and transit-oriented development in our cities. We are just beginning to discuss the right ideas and practices. The long road to implementation of transit-oriented cities will require restoring the competitive advantage of the concept backed by institutional coordination and reforms in urban planning practices.
BDP India Business Director & Head | ULI India Exco : Chair of WLI
2 个月One of the biggest issues we’ve faced is that developers continue to demand parking as if the development was located on the highway. For effective TOD to work, parking numbers need to be reduced so that residents focus on public transit. However in practice, developers claim the increased FSI but with same level of parking requirements, making the project expensive and unviable.
Brian Q Love - Chartered Architect, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Member of the Policy Council of the Town and Country Planning Association and Associate of the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transport
2 个月Completely agree with your arguments. But the real opportunity is not in Tier 1 cities, but in Tier 2 & 3 cities, where their growth can still be accommodated sustainably. See https://www.connectedcities.org/case-studies/tirunelveli-india
Rutul Joshi a good read sir especially the lacunas you highlighted. Your suggestions can be taken up in growing cities between 10-15 lakhs where there is slightly more room for reforms and coordination. T
Thanks for sharing this ! Everything you mention is valid for most cities. Mumbai's context is slightly different. Mumbai has always been building compactly and densely. The state govt through the Mumbai 20234 DCPR has raised plot FAR to 5 in most areas within 500 m from metro corridors. But a lot of this is being deployed in residential projects where its a sale model and not a long term asset for the developer as the end returns are higher. Now, Residential sale values are so high that potential buyers and speculative investors demand two or at least one car per unit . This has led to a scenario where these "walkable" development's and projects have the highest additions of car parking slots and huge density of cars. Not to mention all the dead volume and concrete going into building parking spaces. In some cases the car parking area is equivalent to the unit area ! in most projects almost 40 % of BUA of the project is going for parking infrastructure. All this without any addition of pedestrian infrastructure leading out of these projects. Its a paradox - all transit oriented developments in Mumbai are getting occupied by people who don't use transit. :)
Sr Dy Chief Project Manager at Maharashtra Metro Rail Corp Ltd. Speaker-smart city, Urban Management, urban mobility, sustainability, TOD
2 个月Transit Oriented Development is the tool for development of a smart city. In today’s scenario of climate crisis and its catastrophic effects, greening of transport sector cannot be overstated, taking into account the huge contribution of this sector to carbon emission. It is very rightly said that TOD is being looked after, in our cities, only as a tool to earn money through FAR of tall buildings and this is seen prominently in the cities where Metro rail projects have come up. Sadly it is the fact that even a city like Delhi where the metro rail is pretty old, could not do much as far as TOD is concerned. Very recently our team of Maharashtra Metro Rail Corp Ltd had been to Delhi to study the work done there in the areas of MMI, last mile connectivity and TOD. We were told the same thing that for the lack of coordination between planning authorities there and the DMRC nothing has yet been done in TOD.This is the scenario everywhere. TOD is just a policy document without any legislative backing; in fact TOD plan should be made an integral part of the Development Plan of the city. Having said this the Develolment Plan, since mandatory, is prepared by the cities but implementation part is very dismal.