"Buses, not metros, are the key to fixing India's urban transport mess. Learn from London," wrote Shashi Verma, Chief Technology Officer at Transport for London, in a column. The article, published by The Print, has spawned interesting responses from commentators.
Diva Jain, who describes herself as a policy wonk, says that it is bizarre to compare greater London to any Indian city. "Indian cities have density levels of London Zone 1 where the underground dominates. In Hong Kong, whose density is closer to that of an Indian city, Metro rail is dominant," she writes.
Sharan Setty of Swarajya Mag says that Bengaluru has become a royal mess because urban activists and experts have always "fancied more buses on the streets". He says that the Metro expansion is the only "easy, affordable, all-weather solution to beat the traffic and the heat".
Columnist Somnath Mukherjee says, "Road density in London/UK is greater than that in any large Indian city. The key to fixing urban transport is to have a lot more roads. Get triple/quadruple deckers, reclaim large tracts of land, and de-slum city centres," he proposes.
