On July 26th, Tuesday Transparent Chennai co-hosted a workshop with ITDP (Institute for Transport and Development Policy) on solving parking issues in Chennai. Our key speaker, Michael Kodransky, is a traffic reduction program manager at ITDP in New York and has developed parking solutions in several countries. Attendees included personnel from CIVITAS (an organisation from Kochi), Chennai City connect, representatives from RWAs in Annanagar and Nanganallur, scholars, retired government officials and other concerned professionals. This post is a summary of the discussions that took place during the workshop.

Chennai has seen a staggering 295% growth in vehicle registration in the last decade which has increased the tally of cars to 5.5 lakh and two wheelers to about 25 lakh.[1] As the roads have not increased in proportion to the number of vehicles, there is congestion during peak hours and the mobility speed has also reduced to less 10km/h in the city core. It is estimated that Chennai has only about 3100 cars on street parking space in the city.

The question is do we really need to provide vehicular parking at the cost of important public space, and if so at what price? The following topics were discussed at length:

  • Do the people consider parking as a public good and expect the government to provide it?
  • Reliability and service delivery of public transport.
  • Enforcement and guidance to park in correct manner.
  • Who do we hold accountable for parking?
  • Is the parking fee collected sufficient and are there incentives to discourage usage of private vehicles?

Possible solutions and answers:

The traffic police is responsible for demarcating the on street parking space (yellow lines) while the corporation and highways department for allocating and permitting street parking areas. The corporation tenders out the collection of parking fee to contractors and hence has little or no control over the pricing of parking space which should be in consonance with the rental paid in that area. With the UMTA (Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority) bill gaining strength, it will integrate transport solutions and encourage people to use public transport by creating parking facilities near the public transport terminals.

Policy reforms that lead to better parking solutions and also a change in people’s perceptions about the use of private vehicles are much needed.

Following are some cities that have adopted some innovative techniques for solving their parking troubles and for having a better and more car-free city:

Copenhagen: experienced a complete turnaround from being a car driven city to a cycle driven city. It boasts of having the world’s longest pedestrian street which is vibrant throughout the year. The city realised that all their trips begin and end at the parking lot and it was not be possible to provide the requisite number of parking space in the future.

Zurich: Imposed a regulation to make the centre of the city auto free. The parking capacity regulation is based on the proximity of site to the transit facility, thus optimising road capacity. It also has a pricing mechanism based on the idea that the longer a car occupies a parking lot, the greater is the burden on the city

London: had its first parking meter installed at Grosvenor square near American Embassy in 1956. Revenues from charging parking fee are used for issuing freedom passes (free public transport) for elderly and disabled. A Borough of Camden in greater London has linked parking permits to CO2 emissions to ensure a greener city.

Amsterdam: Has a scheme under which the resident pays a price to avail on street parking space which is to be used only by his car. They also have a strict enforcement for illegal parking through a scan car technique which is 98% accurate. One can also pay parking fees by their mobile phones or internet.

Stockholm: In Stockholm the developers contacts the parking facilitator to avail parking space off site to satisfy parking regulation. The drivers pay a small monthly subscription fee and a small transaction fee every time they park.

Paris: evolved a parking standards based on availability of transit to encourage developers to maximise built up space by removal of minimum parking requirements in those areas. So if the site falls within 500m from a metro station the building may not require giving any parking at all. It has also converted several parking spaces to accommodate bicycle sharing points and have put bollards to restrict encroachment of pedestrian sidewalks.

Even a car dependent country like USA has eliminated parking spaces and pedestrianised areas in Boulder, Colorado and Times Square New York. The most effective way to reduce private vehicular dependency as said by Hermann Knoflacher, a professor in the University of Vienna, is by ensuring that “walking distance to a parking place is at least as long as the walking distance to get public transport.”

[1] http://www.tn.gov.in/sta/stat1.html

Roshan Toshniwal

Not satisfied with the level of detail in Google satellite imagery, Siddharth decided it was time TC went airborne! So, he quickly educated himself on the how-to’s of using a balloon/kite for aerial photography and began his preparations for a DIY aerial imagery project.

In no time, he had come up with a contraption made out of a plastic bottle (to house the camera), a tank of helium and regulator (from god knows where), an emergency silver foil sleeping bag (the ‘balloon’) and a spool of kilometers of cord. All this had the rest of us in office wondering what was happening. Those of us in TC had an idea and those not in the loop probably thought the TC team had finally lost it. But finally he was ready for a test ‘launch’ and we were invited to Elliots Beach to be part of the event!

From whatever we had read, we knew that our balloon and DIY camera housing UFO was ‘state of the art’ and met all logical requirements for a successful launch. The only problem could be the wind. To quote from one of the balloon mapping toolkits – “In general kites are good in more than 15mph and balloons in less than 10mph winds…. Let the balloon rise as fast as you can; as soon as you resist it the wind will blow it down”. We knew the beach was super windy but we were undeterred.

Along came L-Day (Launch) and morning walkers and ultimate players stopped mid-stride on seeing a bunch of weirdos tugging on this big silver balloon. Some time spent on setting the camera up to click continuously and securing it in the mini-UFO and it was T minus 90 seconds. A short walk to a secluded point away from obstacles and it was T minus 20 secs. Countdown and lift-off!! The balloon rose about 6 feet and then came crashing down!! Too much wind and too much resistance on the tether.

After some more tries we managed getting it up to about 10-15 feet but the wind would just blow it back down. Keeping our chins up, we then proceeded to go to a nearby park surrounded by buildings – where there would be less wind. Confused cricketers stopped their game but then resumed when they realised we would be trespassing their playground for a bit. With 8 of us taking up position at long on, we got a few dirty looks but we were too excited to care.

Applying the learnings from the beach attempts, we carefully set-up and launched! The balloon rose – hesitated – rose – hesitated and then went up, up , up! 20 feet, 30 feet, 40 feet and we were cheering for our balloon! Then along came a gust of wind and the whole contraption went crashing down on a rooftop. It took a few kite flying tactics to get the line disentangled from coconut palms and trees but we retrieved it and checked the camera. It was in one piece and it had captured some good shots from up above!


So we headed to Murugan Idli for a well deserved breakfast secure in the knowledge that Sid’s contraption worked in theory. Now we only need to find a way to beat the wind. Since the plan is to use the balloon to get imagery of Urur Kuppam, we will have to deal with strong winds. More lifting power, less resistance on the line, more streamlined balloon designs – we will keep experimenting and hopefully something will work and we will soon have hi-res aerial imagery of Urur Kuppam!!

We will continue blogging on this initiative but if you want more details and want to join us or try balloon mapping on your own, contact Siddharth Hande, our enterprising young balloon mapper in the making.

- Akshai Abraham


In December 2010, Reclaim Our Beaches (ROB), a local youth initiative in the city, contacted Transparent Chennai to see if TC could, in any way, help strengthen a proposal that they were sending to the Chennai Corporation on the need for dustbins and toilets on Elliots and Valmiki beaches. A methodology for data creation was devised that would benefit both organizations. For ROB, it was the creation of spatially precise data that buttressed the need for dustbins and toilets, and for TC, it served as a starting point for infrastructure and pollution mapping of Chennai’s coastline. This blogpost will tell our readers about how the data created helped strengthen ROB’s proposal to the Chennai Corporation.

Dustbins and Toilets on the Beach:

ROB’s campaign, which involves placing dustbins and toilets on the beach as a first step towards a healthier beach environment, led them to a meeting with the Chennai Corporation, a civic body responsible for maintenance of public spaces and amenities in the city among other things. The meeting ended with the corporation suggesting that ROB submit a proposal stating the nature of problem and related demands concerning Chennai’s beaches.

While thrilled at the opportunity to come up with a sound proposal that would put dustbins and toilets on the beach they soon realized that it was not an easy task to create a convincing proposal especially since they were an unregistered organization. The need to make their proposal more persuasive was why they initially contacted TC.

TC and ROB:

At TC, a methodology was devised for obtaining information on the formal and informal uses of Elliots and Valmiki Beaches that would help ROB to: 1. help reinforce the need for dustbins and toilets; 2. provide insight into the most effective locations for the same.

How so? Let us explain by using Elliots beach as an example.

While ROB already had data on the amount of trash along the coastline, this data was repackaged to spatially showcase how dirty the beach was during different days and times. We did this by mapping sites where trash had accumulated on different days to get a spatial sense of the problem. In our study, a trash accumulation site was defined as any area where more than 5 pieces of trash were found together.

These sites were mapped by ROB volunteers on Monday 20/11/2010

These sites were mapped by ROB volunteers on Sunday 02/01/2011

As you can see, these maps provide a strong spatial representation of the problem of trash on Elliots beach. What’s even better is by overlaying this data with the existing neelmetal dumpsters and government operated dustbins in the area, one can easily see how the present waste management system is inadequate.

Similar representations of informal urine hotspots were mapped and overlaid with information of public toilet facilities in the area to present the need for more toilets.

To help in locating ideal places for trash bins a heat map containing a point density algorithm was used to spatially show the most concentrations of trash thereby showing where trash bins would be most useful.

Example heat map using the trash accumulation data obtained on 20/11/2010

The same methodology was used to stress the need for toilets as well. We hope that these maps will help ROB’s proposal to the Corporation and eventually result in more dustbins and toilets on the beach.

Go to Build A Map feature on our website to explore our Beach Layer! Please do write to us and give us feedback on our methodology.

- Siddharth Hande

The much talked about elevated expressway from Chennai Port to Maduravoyal finally gets Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance from The Ministry of Environment and Forests. For those who were unaware of this project or the recent developments, snapshots of maps from Transparent Chennai’s website might be of some help.

Following is a rough route map of the planned elevated expressway:

Further details are given below:

Right from its planning to inception stage, this large scale infrastructure project received a lot of negative criticism on account of not being pro-poor and environmentally friendly. Yet the project has so far succeeded in getting all approvals required for the smooth implementation of the project. While the CRZ clearance is subject to compliance with certain conditions, the question is are we well equipped to oversee that these conditions are not violated in due course?

Read more about this recent development in Hindu.

——

Somya Sethuraman

This post in an excerpt from a Media Voice Magazine article on Chennai’s SWM crisis. Read more in the March issue of Media Voice Magazine.

The informal sector in SWM refers to scavengers and rag pickers that are involved in the extraction of reusable and recyclable materials from unsegregated waste. The work of this group is labor-intensive, low-paid and unregulated. The informal sector intervenes at several points of the SWM system. This includes iterant waste buyers that collect waste door-to-door, street-level waste pickers and dump site workers. Most Indian metros have large populations of rag pickers. Chintan, a New Delhi-based NGO, estimates that the city has close to 300,000 rag pickers who retrieve around 1,000 tons of waste a day from the municipal cycle – around 20% of Delhi’s daily garbage that would otherwise make its way into dump yards.

About a decade ago, Chennai’s SWM network included thousands of waste pickers, who scavenged for raw materials from dust bins, road sides, dump sites and transfer stations. This sector has shrunk to a great degree in recent years due to reasons which can be attributed to privatization of SWM and a general disregard for rag pickers by the CoC. In 2000, Chennai became the first Indian city to hire a private agency to fulfill part of its SWM duties. Onyx used a large work force, compactors and other facilities to clear garbage, and thus left rag pickers with limited access to waste. Furthermore, in order to comply with the SWM Rules, the CoC constructed compound walls around Perungudi and Kodungaiyur dump yards, as well as its transfer stations and set up security personnel to guard these sites. Rag pickers, who used to retrieve recyclables in these sites, now have very limited access to them. Many have to pay bribes or undergo harassment in order to enter these places.



A rag picker settlement adjacent to the Kodungaiyur dump yard in Chennai.

Kodungaiyur is one of two major dump sites in the city of Chennai. This 350-acre site receives around 1500 tonnes of garbage a day. It is also home to over 2000 rag pickers, who live in shacks behind the site. With the main entrance guarded by security and the site walled off, rag pickers only have access to waste from the back entrance of the site. Dubeda, in this photo, is a rag picker who lives in this settlement and only collects remnants of shoes. She says that many rag pickers specialize in retrieving specific raw materials, such as glass, paper, plastic, etc. She has been involved in this profession ever since she lost her husband 14 years ago. Rag picking is her main profession, without with she has no source of income. Also seen in this picture is Dubeda’s young daughter, who will be helping her out with waste picking in a few years.

Vijay Anand, a social worker with Exnora, stresses on the importance of resource recovery and estimates that only 5% of our absolute waste would end up in landfills with proper recycling and segregation. He explains that the informal sector is an integral cog to the SWM system, without which resource recovery is extremely low. Accommodations must be made at the policy-making level to recognize the importance of their work and include them within the formal SWM system. Almitra Patel of the Supreme Court committee for SWM recently urged the CoC to formally employ rag pickers to clean up the city. She estimates that waste that is source segregated could potentially earn Chennai up to 1 crore rupees a month. Unfortunately, the CoC is apprehensive about hiring informal sector workers to do corporation jobs due to their nomadic lifestyles, lack of stability, and because they do not possess identification material, such as ration cards and birth certificates.

- Vaishnavi Narasimhan

Roshan Toshniwal

The first week of January, Chennai had a campaign for road safety week. Traffic policemen handed over pamphlets containing information for safe driving to the motorist, ushering pedestrians to safely cross traffic junctions and educating children in schools about road safety. According to a recent article in The Hindu, the number of accidents in the city have stayed the same, but the number has sharply increased in the suburbs. If both the suburban and city fatalities are counted, the number of deaths from traffic accidents in Chennai in 2010 increases to 1,415. According to the reporter, this is the largest number of deaths in 10 years, nearly triple what it was in 2000.

We at Transparent Chennai had filed an RTI (Right to Information Act) petition to get the record of accidents and their locations in the last five years (2005-2009). From the data we have available, Jawaharlal Nehru Road (100 feet road), Anna Salai, EVR Salai (Poonamalee High Road) and the East Coast Road have the maximum number of accidents.

On the 100 feet road – Thirumangalam, Koyembedu, Vadapalani and the Kathipara junctions are the biggest hotspots for accidents. On EVR Salai, Nelson Manickan Road, the Ega theatre, and the Vaishnav College junction are the hotspots for accidents. On Anna Salai, Teynampet Signal, Nandanam signal and the Walajah Road junction are the hot spots. According to the data, from the recorded 5,182 accidents there were 1427 accidents in which pedestrians were involved which is about 27.5% . Between every three accidents one accident involves a pedestrian.

According to a report compiled by the WHO (World Health Organisation), road safety has become the tenth leading cause of death in the world, and is expected to become the fifth leading cause of death by 2030. The report states that “each year nearly 1.3 million people die as a result of a road traffic collision—more than 3,000 deaths each day—and more than half of these people are not travelling in a car. Twenty to fifty million more people sustain non-fatal injuries from a collision, and these injuries are an important cause of disability worldwide.”  ((WHO), 2009) More importantly, the report says that 90% of deaths related to traffic accidents occur in low- and middle-income countries, even though these countries have less than half of the world’s registered automobiles.

Within India, too, the data shows that accidents are concentrated in certain states. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka together account for 38% of the country’s accidents. (Research WinG, 2008)

Chennai’s fatality rate puts it second on the list of metropolitan cities that experience the most number of road accidents, a comparison of official figures reveals. New Delhi, a much bigger city, recorded 1,978 traffic fatalities in 2010. Below is a comparative analysis of various cities based on 2008 data. The Tamil Nadu government wants to make changes to this situation – at least on paper. The road safety policy in the state aims to achieve a 20% reduction in fatalities and injuries from road accidents by 2013. (http://www.tn.gov.in/sta/) However, such reductions will require focused action from the government on traffic safety, of the sort we have not yet seen.

Accident profile of selected cities in 2008:

S.No Name
of the
City		 Population (Projected) Total Number of Accident Severity No.per 1,00,000 people
Accidents Fatal Accidents Persons killed Persons Injured Total Accidents Persons killed Persons Injured
1 Ahmedabad 52,88,962 2519 244 263 2494 10.4 47 4.9 46.5
2 Bangalore 66,98,651 7773 838 865 6180 11.1 114.4 12.7 91
3 Chennai 72,16,068 6386 612 629 4971 9.8 87.2 8.6 67.9
4 Delhi 15926245 8435 2015 2093 7343 24.8 52.2 13 45.5
5 Hyderabad 6601340 3342 506 518 3205 15.5 49.9 7.7 47.9
6 Jaipur 2872666 2098 422 452 1894 21.5 72 15.5 65
7 Kanpur 3140883 1340 512 584 1247 43.6 42.1 18.3 39.1
8 Kolkatta 14454844 2812 411 421 2124 15 19.2 2.9 14.5
9 Lucknow 2604459 1308 485 518 847 39.6 49.5 19.6 32.1
10 Mumbai 18771964 29781 589 622 6453 2.1 156.4 3.3 33.9
11 Pune 4617904 2270 458 477 1890 21 48.5 10.2 40.3
12 Surat 3825267 1486 239 246 1120 16.6 38.3 6.3 28.9
Total 9,20,19,253 69,550 7,331 7,688 39,768 19 65 10 46
All India 1,14,47,34,000 4,84,704 1,06,591 1,19,860 5,23,193 24.7 42.3 10.5 45.7
Accident Severity: Number of Accidents/100

Source: Road Accidents in India (2008), Transport Research Wing, Ministry of Road Transport and Highway (GOI).

These numbers may not be accurate as several accidents are underreported, not analysed in a systematic way, not categorised under road traffic injuries and sometimes. Apart from this there are discrepancies in data provided by the media although three sources police transport and health sector keeps a record of the road traffic injuries.

——————————————————————————————————–
(WHO), W. H. (2009). Global Status report on Road Safety: Time for Action. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO press.
http://www.tn.gov.in/sta/. (n.d.). Retrieved January 5, 2011, from Tamil Nadu State Transport Department : http://www.tn.gov.in/policynotes/pdf/home_transport.pdf
Research WinG, M. o. (2008). Road Accident in India . New Delhi: Government of India.
Srivatsan, A. (2010, January 9). Fatal Accidents have tripled in the last ten Years. The Hindu , p. 3.

Constructed by the British during the colonial era, Mount Road is an embodiment of the development that has taken place in Chennai. One of the city’s main arteries, this 15km road stretches past some of the largest corporate establishments and Government offices.

Selvan Thandapani wandered the side streets along Mount Road and discovered that the ease of life and provision of infrastructure and services normally associated with development has not percolated to the voiceless residents who live on these streets. This photo journal captures a glimpse into the lives of the residents of ThiruvikaColony, one of the many poor neighbourhoods around Mount Road.
Themes by Elizabeth Mathew

Click here to watch – Residents of Thiruvika colony

Contributed by Selvan Thandapani, Centre for Development Finance, IFMR.

The team of Transparent Chennai sits in a comfortable air-conditioned office with a beautiful cafeteria, serene environment, excellent infrastructure with ergonomic chairs and clean, hygienic toilets. The last one on the list, i.e. washrooms, is something that can easily escape our attention. Many times I hear my colleagues say – “What an awesome cafeteria!”and “What a comfortable chair!”, but never heard anybody say that they are glad to have washrooms in this office. I suppose this is because most of us presume such basic needs and services to be in place. But what about other residents of Chennai, especially the less privileged ones – workers in the informal sector, residents living in slums, employees at workplaces without any access to sanitation? This is where public toilets come to the rescue of these not so privileged classes. Has the government succeeded in fulfilling these basic needs of its people? This is the question that daunted our team for a long time, and very soon enough became a new project, a new idea, a new reason for the team to get busy – ‘Access to Sanitation for Chennai Residents’

A few times when our office toilets are locked up temporarily for maintenance, everyone looks extremely worried and distracted. Now just imagine the plight of those workers, especially women workers, who are constantly worried about such things! How can they concentrate on their work or for that matter lead a hygienic and healthy life if adequate sanitation facilities are not provided to them? Transparent Chennai decided to find out how these people feel about this aspect of their lives.

1. Behind the scenes: Somya, Sam, Vaishnavi and Muthu.

The first step towards figuring out an answer is to have data to look at. One of our brightest interns went about the city collecting data on public toilets built by the Corporation of Chennai, and other private toilets, if any. Chennai city is divided into 10 Zones and the data told us that the number of toilets at present stands at 572. With each zone having a population of around 4lakhs, this number is quite disturbing. Further, while some zones have as many as 100 toilets, some barely have 20! This is all the more shocking. Never mind, we thought. Let’s go and talk to these people first. We chose Zone 4 from the list having the least number of toilets – 20 for our interaction.

Owner of a toilet poses for a snap

While the results of the survey/interviews will be disclosed later, I would really like to talk about our experience. First, the list given to us by the Corporation is far from being comprehensive. With only the street names with us, it was extremely difficult to locate these on the maps and Sam, I and Muthu had to sit with it for hours to figure it out on the map. Second, there were some street names which were at multiple locations on the map, making our search all the more difficult. But this was only the beginning. Once located on the map, the same had to be discovered in the field. Third, some of the streets did not even have a mention on any of the maps we referred to. So, we just went blindly to Zone 4 and began our search. I remember a certain Jagannathan street which we searched for almost an hour on the field. We kept going round and round the same roads and finally found this mysteriously hidden street to our relief. I am sure if asked to go back, none of us would have a clue about it. Probably the GPS points that we noted down at each location would come to our rescue.

Finally, the questionnaires had to be revised multiple times to suit our needs after taking into account the observations made on our first field visit. All in all, it was a really enriching yet tiring experience. The Chennai heat was gruesome and the rains only made the visits worse, with water clogging, traffic jams and blocked sewers. However, the people we interviewed were extremely friendly and welcoming and many offered to serve us tea and coffee in spite of their poor economic status. Children were really enthusiastic and grinned and laughed, probably more than I used to when I was a child. The people and their lives touched our hearts and made the entire experience warm and memorable. One thing which was pretty much obvious from the time we commenced this study is that, it is extremely difficult in this city to get any information, be it some basic information on public toilets.

Posted by Somya Sethuraman