Post-modernism & transport planning

Oosterwolde, Netherlands

by Sameer Sharma
Economic Times

The emergence of postmodernism as an alternative to modernism has useful lessons for Indian policymakers. Modernism, in the words of David Harvey, “entails a ruthless break with any or all preceding historical traditions” and the west during the pursuit of the “High Modern” project completely disassembled existing historic structures because all historical social systems were perceived to be inherently backward, which held back progress; therefore, had to be abandoned. On the other hand, India never completely let go of its past and the “revalorisation of tradition” has once again made India a wonder for the western mind, in the way described by A L Basham.

A product of Enlightenment, the modernist project rests on the underlying notion that laws of reality objectively exist and by applying scientific principles these can be discovered and mastered to promote human welfare. Hence, modernism searches for general theories and universal laws, disregarding culture and context. On the other hand, a paradigm shift occurred with postmodernism, which tries to understand reality by looking for culture-specific characteristics and unique local conditions.

Similar trends are visible in urban planning, which has veered away from a “Fordist” approach to create technologically efficient urban forms, such as mass suburbia, “international-style” towers in inner cities, and auto-dependent neighbourhoods to recognition of urban diversity and complexity.

Accordingly, Corbusier’s concept of a house as a “machine for living” and claim that a “city made for speed is made for success” has been replaced by Lynch’s “good city form”, Boyer’s search for a “city of collective memory”, and Calthropian human, as opposed to machine-based, planning-scales. Postmodern urban sensibility, directed towards “pluralism, a search for character, urban identity, unique features, visual references, creation of landmarks”, provides a basis to design innovative and inclusive India-specific urban policies and one example is the application of post-modern principles to transport planning and traffic engineering.

Western transport planning is based on creating “traffic zones” to achieve consistency, conformity and predictability in auto and pedestrian movement. Roads are categorised into a hierarchy of road types, suitable for various functions, speeds, and traffic volumes (e.g., national highways, neighbourhood roads). Furthermore, there is segregation between traffic and pedestrian networks on roads.

The principles of categorisation and segregation were operationalised by the west during the last 75 years. Commonly, Eugene Henard is considered to be the progenitor of modern traffic engineering, and Holroyd Smith introduced these principles to the US, which were later codified by Arthur Tuttle and Edward Holmes. Segregation between traffic and pedestrian networks was first tried in Radburn, New Jersey, and the separation principle was further developed in the Buchanan report, Traffic in Towns.

Undoubtedly, such “traffic zones” are required for the exclusive use of vehicles on highways, but recent postmodern practices in Europe are also looking at roads as “social zones”. Unlike traffic zones, social zones integrate car and pedestrian movement. The combination of traffic with pedestrian movements, children’s play, and social activities is based on the “woonerf principles” developed by Niek de Boer and Joost Vahl in the Netherlands. Similar postmodern concepts were also experimented in the UK in the “Home Zones” programme.

Traditionally, transport planning is based on the 3Es — enforcement, education, and engineering. The common belief is that traffic will flow smoothly if traffic rules are enforced, public educated, and roads upgraded to universal standards. On the contrary, woonerf principles envisage streets to be social zones.

For instance, the city of Christiansfeld, Denmark used “ambiguity and urban legibility” in street design to reduce high death rates on the town’s central traffic intersection. Instead of erecting warning signs, road markings, and traffic signals, Bjarne Winterberg and the engineering firm Ramboll removed traffic signals and road markings. No mode of transport was given priority and pedestrians, buses, cars, and trucks used eye contact to negotiate the junction.

Surface treatment, lightning columns, and junction corners were squared up. The purpose was to make the intersection resemble the centre of the town or to create a public realm. Expectedly, the number of killed or seriously injured (KSI) during the last three years was reduced to zero, moreover, traffic backups were reduced. Compared to junctions having traffic signals, ambiguous junctions prevent accidents, reduce delays, and are cheaper to construct and maintain.

Shared space is another woonerf principle that is applied to transform busy traffic intersections. In Friesland market town of Oosterwolde, different types of traffic intermingle giving an impression of chaos and disorder, in fact, traffic negotiates the junction using eye contact and care for other types of transport. No state regulation or control is visible and traffic movement depends on informal convention and legibility.

Living in an urban environment in which kerbs are used to prevent interaction of pedestrian activity with carriageway and painted lines show places humans should walk and cross streets, people coming from the high-income countries are appalled by the absence of kerbs, road markings, bollards, traffic signals, barriers, and signs in India.

What they fail to understand is that the traffic, as it is in Indian cities, reflects the local values and cultural history of the place leading to lack of uniformity and ambiguity, requiring a different set of rules to reconcile competing and conflicting claims for safety, efficient movement, and the quality of the built environment. In this setting, real improvement in traffic congestion is only possible by using contextual designs, based on postmodern ideas, to influence traffic speeds and driver behaviour.

The author is an Indian Administrative Services officer. Views are personal.

The City Imagined

by Gautam Bhatia
LiveMint

Of the various disciplines that give scope and structure to the idea of a city— among them architecture, planning, demography and sociology—no one would argue that the central premise is aspirational. People come together to live better lives and find opportunities to improve their condition. Yet, in the absence of a public policy related to this ideal, how can the city create equitable conditions of opportunity related to its growth and development?

Campbell Towers, Malibu Gardens

So far, every aspect of growth has been related to consumerist ideals. The parcelling of land to private developers has naturally led to discriminatory patterns of development, related solely to middle-class aspirations. “Live a new life at Campbell Towers, just 12km from downtown Pune”, or “Come to Malibu Gardens, Ahmedabad’s new upmarket address”. Air-conditioned glass houses with seductive titles, copied from European models, spring up overnight in the suburbs: Belvedere Glades, Cameron Manor— business ventures for quick, profitable returns. Everyone knows it is more profitable to build for one man at an 18-hole golf course than for 18 men at one handpump. There is money to be made in exclusive locales—clubs, industrial parks, expensive upscale farmhouses and retail businesses. And the builder is the new city planner.

Singular need, paper attempts

Unfortunately, when foreign ideals and designer townships become realities in the Indian city, few would be interested in cross-examining the contents for ecology or equities in energy, transportation and lifestyle. Yet, if ever there was a need to comprehensively examine the forces of Indian city living, it is now. With growing populations and nagging displacements, a yawning gap between the old settled and the newly arrived, and indeed between liveable and available space, the search for an alternative way of urban living is the single most glaring need for the city. Yet nowhere has there been a serious attempt to define in clear physical terms the kind of setting that would suit the requirements of all sections of urban India.

Certainly there have been many attempts on paper. The Third World Metropolis. City in Search of a Future. New Town Design. The Alternative City. All grand ideals that examine statistics and planning patterns, but do little to create a physical structure that can be built, seen and felt as a future model for growth.Despite monumental problems and annual shortfalls, the incomplete approach to planning and design is part of the psychology of a government unable to take bold initiatives. Only when problems manifest themselves in health epidemics, housing shortages or food contamination does the government initiate action. A Rs 8,000 house designed by an engineer 20 years ago was seen as a great thrust towards a bold future. That the cement and bamboo structure would be hot and cold in the wrong seasons, had inadequate ventilation and was entirely unsuited to local ideas was overlooked owing to the seductively low cost. The house was a winner solely on the thrift of its construction.

Low-cost house or new city?

How then do societies with a far lesser need for change and experimentation promote bolder ideas, with more rigorous parameters? The Masdar Initiative, for instance, is a 64.5 million sq. ft sustainable development outside Abu Dhabi which advertises itself as a zero-carbon, zero-waste city. Planned by Norman Foster, its design integrates the traditional principles of a walled city with advanced ideas in harnessing energy and reusing waste. The ambitious project bills itself as the future desert metropolis. Whether it succeeds in its objective is less important than the will that drives people to such a monumental experiment.

In a place where an ill-conceived but cheap concrete roof is seen as futuristic, a scale of endeavour such as the Masdar Initiative would seem foolishly ambitious, a piece of science fiction. How many bureaucrats, politicians, government files and Planning Commission meetings would it take to bridge the divide between a cement house and a whole new city? It is a question that sinks quickly into parody.

Long road ahead

The need for a new direction in India can no longer be part of a government wish list or the old perception that views city problems merely as a matter of cleaning up—razing slums and replacing them with golf courses. Or whitewashing slum walls and asking people to remain indoors. The fear that a new idea may not work and that the responsibility will come to rest uncomfortably on the shoulders of a bureaucrat or a minister keeps the government from supporting any serious alternatives.

Is there anyone...?

Given the power that builders and developers exercise in the allocation of land and buildings in a city, it is a shame that few among them have taken to experimentation. To be the richest in the world, recognized by Forbes, is enough for the gloating family of Indian business achievers. But with profits in luxury housing dwindling, is there anyone out there—a DLF, Unitech or Raheja— who can summon up enough courage to embark on a different road and direct even a minuscule part of its profits towards the design of a new community? An idea that rejects convention and provides a clear physical representation of a new form of urban living suited to Indian needs—the way people relate to their homes, places of recreation, proximity to markets, desire for leisure, need for security, new types of transportation, and new alternate forms of energy—to produce a real model of a few hundred units among the millions they place in the market every year? In their able and experienced hands, and with inputs on possible alternatives from architects, planners, transport engineers and energy experts, there may yet be hope for an Indian city.

Illustration: Jayachandran / Mint