Data for the study on vehicular density came from two sources: the vehicular count from the state transport department till December 31, 2021; car count across cities — and vehicular density calculation — from data sourced by Kolkata Police from the police of those cities.
The majority of Kolkata’s 1,850km-long total road length is two-laned. Experts said the city needed six-lane roads to accommodate the current volume of vehicles. Kolkata currently has no six-lane road. A few stretches — E M Bypass, Red Road-Kidderpore Road and stretches of J L Nehru Road-SP Mukherjee Road — are four-lane. “Thus, most roads in the city have exceeded saturation level,” said an officer of the Bengal Traffic-Transportation Planning Directorate.
“This is a problem in all big Indian cities,” said Ranjit Gadgil, a transport expert from Parisar, an advocacy group for sustainable mobility. “The day is not far when walking takes you faster to your destination than a car or bus,” he added.
The problem with personalised vehicles is the low passenger count per vehicle. Moreover, parking of personal vehicles eats into carriageways, shrinking road space. “People prefer to park on the road as parking fees in the city are among the lowest in the world,” said Ajay Das, former chief of traffic and transportation engineer, Bengal.
Cars saw a steep rise during the pandemic. Between March 2020 and May 2022, as many as 78,102 cars were added to the city’s fleet. “The fear of catching Covid overrode the cost-benefit rationale in purchasing a car. In a city like Kolkata, we need more mass transit systems like buses, which facilitate the dispersal of a large volume of commuters. More cars mean more congestion and pollution,” said Sharif Qamar, associate director, transport and urban governance, TERI.
