Transit Oriented Development Strategies in Indian cities

Abstract

Urbanization is one of the major phenomenon in the current urban scenario. It has been estimated that by 2030 around 400 square kilometers of land would be consumed for urban area and it is expected that in the next 20 years urban population will be doubled due to massive spatial and economic change in developing countries. Many developed countries like UK, USA have adopted transit oriented strategies that focus on catalyzing development along transit oriented corridors. On an ongoing basis, the strategies have been presented for augmenting development and transit ridership.
There have been adverse effects of urbanization on development in many countries. In India, mass urbanization, is leading to severe environmental and economic problems such as urban poverty, congestion, pollution, degradation of quality of life etc. Hence, a sustainable approach is required to attend to these problems and ensure a positive growth for the cities. In Indian cities, rapid transit is a comparatively new phenomenon. Hence, the current strategies being introduced include densifying the development along the transit corridors, boosting compact development, discouraging private ridership, improving paratransit modes to enhance transit accessibility and ridership.
A transit-oriented development (TOD) is thus an approach integrating land use and transit systems to maximize access to public transport and solve other glitches. Transit oriented development embraces compact mixed use design that provide proper accessibility to transit and non-motorized transportation and encourages transit ridership. It aims at integrating infrastructure, transport and land use with urban design to increase positive growth in the city.