Divining reasons for the state of traffic

Last Christmas season my family and I fled tourist-invaded Goa for some peace and quiet. Little did we realize, despite friendly advice, that our destination, Sri Lanka, was also one of those holiday favourites that gets flooded at Christmas time. Along the five days that we were on the island, in addition to experiencing the incredible beauty of the country, we were also forced to spend much of our time in traffic jams, whether in the capital city Colombo, in Kandy, home of the famous Temple of the Tooth, or on the roads between these two cities.

I had been to the island-state some years prior to this family holiday, and I am sure that the country I witnessed was entirely different in terms of the amount of traffic that one experienced. If anything, my journeys then were experiences of smooth flows from one destination to another. It appears that the end of the decades-long civil war may have released extra income into the economy creating the kind of spurt in traffic that one witnessed on my last trip.

Yet, despite the fact that we spent a good amount of time in traffic jams our experience of traffic in Sri Lanka was not the same as that in India, and/or Goa. A traffic jam in India is an occasion for tons of honking and attempts by individuals to cut through the traffic jam by getting onto the opposite lane and charging to the head of the line. Others follow the lead of the first offender which ensures that within a matter of minutes the jam has been complicated beyond imagining and that instead of two lanes, one has multiple lanes, tempers rise and what could have been resolved within a shorter time takes forever to be repaired. 

In the course of the short stay in Sri Lanka my experiences of traffic jams were anything but similar. To begin with traffic jams were the result not of indiscipline, but because of the usual reason for the phenomena, too much traffic on small lanes. Rather than cut across lanes and try to short circuit the system people waited patiently for the traffic to move. It took us a couple of minutes to realize that our experience of the first jam in Sri Lanka was different from what we encountered in India. There was no honking! So strange was the situation that we could just not contain ourselves, and kept repeating this fact, over and over again, to ourselves, and then when we returned home to every one we met.

How can this difference between the road experience in India and Sri Lanka be explained? While in Sri Lanka I did notice that there were clear signs, at least in Colombo, indicating that lane discipline had to be maintained at all time, and the presence of traffic police at regular intervals. Speaking with the driver of the cab we employed we got the sense that the police are invariably on hand to take any offender to task. Responding to our queries he also suggested that it was unlikely that the police would accept bribes from offenders.

In the course of our journey, as we grew close to our driver, he shared much with us about his country. What I would like to focus on, as I try and resolve this question of the traffic discipline in Sri Lanka, is his narratives about the State. He spoke about the health care system that offered free, reliable and dependable service to all Sri Lankans. Trying to build a pattern from all that I had heard from him, I realized that in Sri Lanka the people were assured of an ever present state that was reliable, and dependable. I doubt that the same could be said about India. 

In India, one knows that one cannot rely on the state to maintain the law. The infrastructure of the state is invariably seen as tools to enrich those who gain access to public office. The enforcement of the law is not uniform. Any one in Goa will acknowledge that if one has connections to the officer’s superiors one can get away not only without a fine, but after having insulted the traffic officer. In other words, in India one knows that the state will not look after you, nor will it work to create a level playing ground. You have to look out for yourself in a dog eat dog world. In other words, it is not rules that help you get ahead in India, but the violation of rules, and muscling in on a scene gives you more than waiting patiently in line. The absence of a traffic etiquette in India is therefore the result of a failed state.

In sum, it seems that if there is a difference between traffic behavior in Sri Lanka and India, the reason can be pinned down to the fact that at least at the level of the average citizen, the Sri Lankan state is seen to be a neutral arbiter of rules that are taken seriously, while in India, one knows that the state has abandoned its role and made way for the so-called laws of the jungle to take root.

(A version of this post was first published in The Goan, on 10 April 2016)

No…Mo…Zo! Taking Urban space back to whom it belongs

About a fortnight ago, citizens of Panjim city and from various other parts of the State celebrated a Non Motorized Zone (NoMoZo). By all descriptions, NoMoZo was a grand success, overwhelmed by a huge turn-out of people who flocked to the stretch of Dayanand Bandodkar Road around Campal that had been blocked off for traffic. This NoMoZo then turned that stretch of road into a playground for the citizenry, allowing people to walk across the road, to cycle, to skate, little children to use their tricycles, for the road to be used as canvas for temporary art-works, for playing community games and the like. There was, as was to be expected, some amount of chaos as a result of the traffic diversion, especially where people were unaware of what exactly was going on, but by all reports, this chaos was not substantial.

In the afterglow of such success however, and especially because of the various interpretations of the event that are going around, it is important that we refocus on the agendas that could legitimately animate NoMoZo. One of those supporting the NoMoZo for example, suggested that having Campal free of motorized traffic for a couple of hours was the point of the exercise. “It would look so nice.” The fetishization of traffic-free spaces in elite neighbourhoods however is not the point of NoMoZo. On the contrary, the NoMoZo movement has plans to reconvene next, on 18 June Road, the throbbing heart of Panjim city, on the eighteenth of June. The fetishization of vehicle free roads eventually takes us down an elitist path, justifying the good old days, when only a few people had vehicles. This is categorically not the aim of NoMoZo that has a much more sophisticated relationship with traffic.

There is no denying the fact that since everyone wants and has a vehicle, the traffic in our cities is getting out of control. It is leading to road rage, and the destruction of our cities through the expansion of roads and the consequent demolition of homes and livelihood spaces. One has to also recognize however, that the result of this growth in private vehicles has been the boost in self-image and the social assertion of the owners of these vehicles. This growth in vehicles then, was a part of the democratic project. However, because it is the democratic project that is our goal, and not the growth of automobiles, we need to take this democratic urge forward, by equalizing the playing field and encouraging more people to travel in public transport.  One of the critical goals then, is to boost the use of comfortable, safe, reliable and efficient public transport, transportation that is intended for more than those who cannot afford private vehicles.

The first edition of NoMoZo effected a ban also on the entry of public transport into the demarcated zone. This may be a useful step in the short run, but if public transportation for all is to be our larger goal, it is important NoMoZo be open to including the passage of public transportation when it is in progress. There are a number of reasons, in addition to the discussion above, why this should be done. First, it would encourage, what is admittedly the currently callous way of driving public transport, to discipline itself. Given that NoMoZo is about pointing out that the first citizen of the urban space, is the pedestrian, and not the vehicle, it would train the bus drivers and conductors, to give the pedestrian right of way. Too often unfortunately, might has become right in our society, allowing larger vehicles to mow down smaller vehicles and smaller people. NoMoZo should therefore, actively create an environment where the pedestrian is king. The second reason to allow for public transportation when NoMoZo is in progress, is because it will make people realize that there is a middle-path between using private vehicles and walking; reliable public transportation. If people are annoyed that their thoroughfares are blocked to their vehicles, we should be able to indicate to them, that there is the option of public transport that they can use. Ideally, the State and city governments should use NoMoZo as a way to introduce people to the new mass transit systems that they should start implementing. Also, given that as of today, public transport is used by those with no other option, to evict public transport, when a democratically inclined event like NoMoZo is in operation would be surreal step towards making it just a one-off picnic for the ‘hi-fi’!

There is another cancer that has been eating into our urban life that NoMoZo is ideally located to deal with. This cancer has been the steady abandonment of our public spaces and their falling into disuse, as we retreat to finding entertainment in private spaces.  This trend marks the slow death of society, and the eventual rise of a climate of suspicion of the neighbor. A significant contributor to this tendency is no doubt our increasing use of private capsules to shuttle from one private location to another. Add to these capsules the currently fashionable air-conditioning and our disconnection from the public sphere is compounded. What NoMoZo does is to rekindle the threatened community spirit by taking us away from the private capsules into which we retreat, and back into the public spaces that were being abandoned in favour of private spaces. There will be many who will acknowledge that participating in the first NoMoZo, on the  thirteenth of May, ensured that there are a couple of more faces that they now know in Panjim city, and can smile at, as a result of participating in the community events that animated the event. 

It has to be acknowledged however, that the determined recapture of our public spaces has been a project at least in Panjim city, with the Campal Creek project, the many musical performances at the bandstand in the Jardim Municipal, and many others. While speaking of concerts in public spaces, it should be pointed out that another one of the triumphs of NoMoZo was the use of non-amplified music. Where road-rage is initially released through raucous honking, there is also something disturbing about our indiscriminate use of loudspeakers that foul the public sphere. Toward this end, NoMoZo is also laying the ground for a renewal in the manner in which we conceive of the use of the public sphere.

  

One of the better learnings from NoMoZo however, came from those who, rather than participating in the fun activities that formed the core of NoMoZo, performed the volunteer’s tasks of redirecting traffic. What became increasingly obvious to these volunteers was the kind of effort that goes into a traffic policeperson’s job. A job that has to deal not only with exhaust pollution, but noise pollution, and more often than not the disrespect from motorists. This disrespect involves the refusal to budge, especially when directed by police-women, to vacate no-parking zones; the blithe jumping of red lights; and the refusal to wait patiently in line, but rather resort to individual attempts to cut the traffic jam. Perhaps with more citizens volunteering to manage traffic, we would be able to develop an empathy with the often maligned police forces, returning to labour the dignity that is so often snatched from it?

Goa is fast becoming the victim of its own success. While the growth of real-estate developments are evidence of its success as a destination to live in, the growth in traffic is a success of the society flush with funds. The problem with the latter however, is that we have entered a spiral where the pedestrian is not privileged, and it is the vehicle that has the right of way on roads.  The person has been displaced to locate the vehicle as the appropriate subject of the urban space. Thus we engage in this unending expansion of roads, and see our urban space, not as places to live and play, but as places to park and drive vehicles. NoMoZo is such a welcome move to put the social actor back in the spotlight.  To all those who worked toward making the first NoMoZo a success, thank you, and may your work see fruition. 

Viva NoMoZo!

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times dtd 23 May 2012)

Letters from Portugal: Traffic Rules in Lisbon

In ‘Under the Tuscan Sun’, one of those colour-rich and visually stunning films that Hollywood keeps churning out about the south, Frances, the American protagonist of the film, fazed by the seeming absence of any traffic  rules in Italy, asks her Italian lover Marcello ‘Do traffic lights mean anything around here?’ ‘Yeah, sure.’ Marcello answers cavalierly; ‘Green Light - avanti! avanti!, yellow light - decoration.’ ‘And what about red light?’ asks Frances, given that Marcello has just cut one. ‘Just a suggestion’ Marcello shrugs.

The scene is based on one of those myths that govern our understanding of the world.  The myth suggests to us that real development involves our serious commitment to certain rules.  A system of traffic lights is one of those systems of rules. Thus we are told about the glories of Germany, where you can blindly cross the road the moment the light has turned green for a pedestrian, and if there is a zebra crossing, you don’t really need to look left or right, you just plunge in, and the traffic will just come screeching to a stop. In Germany, and in other parts of the developed North, it is, among other things, simply great to be a pedestrian. 

In the south on the other hand, this woefully indisciplined part of the world, traffic rules are apparently seemingly absent. Might is right, and the person with the larger vehicle, with greater presence of mind wins, the pedestrian be damned.  In any case in most of the world traffic lights directed toward the pedestrian are something that exists only in story books about the fabled cities of the North.

In Portugal’s capital, traffic is ostensibly supposed to operate according to ‘European values’; that is to say according to the rules one generally recognizes as proper. The situation on the ground however is not quite ‘European’ as one would expect. Personal experience has indicated that one does not cross the road even after the lamp has turned green for the pedestrian. One waits a couple of seconds longer until one is sure that there is a line of traffic  at the pedestrian crossing holding the rest of the traffic back. To attempt otherwise is to risk being mowed down by those vehicles that were going ‘avanti, avanti’ trying to catch the last of the yellow light. Then there are those champions who steer their chariots at a standard 60 km/h, around bends even, while they are intensely discuss the latest business deals or share the latest gossip on one of their many cell-phones.

The Portuguese often call themselves a people of gentle manner (um povo dos brandos costumes), and indeed one could get away with thinking this of the Portuguese in the course of daily interaction. Like in other parts of the world however, the universe of the road unleashes a different sort of a beast within the Portuguese. In this universe, the vehicle with the largest power is the beast of the jungle. If you aren’t moving fast enough they will viciously overtake you and thus swear at you as they drive past. Fortunately, given that this exchange takes place between two hermetically sealed capsules travelling at incredible speeds, unless one develops a skill at lip-reading, one does not know just what expletive they have thrown your way.  Discussing this strange transformation with a bunch of other expatriates, the conclusion we came to was that perhaps given the anonymity that speed provides, the road was the one place where the normally protocol and relationship bound Portuguese person could throw off the burdens of tradition and simply vent otherwise pent up frustrations.

The flip side of this entire ‘failing’ however, is that you can also play rules by the same game. Thus, you don’t have to fear a German-style grandmother, scolding you when you skip across the road, instead of waiting for the pedestrian lamp to turn green. You just shrug, think ‘avanti avanti’ and skip across the road! Viva a differencia!

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo 27 Nov 2011)

Life and the Road: Celebrating the life-affirming principles of India’s streets

Speak with the expatriate white folk living in India, an NRI, or similar people, and you will invariably hear an unending litany of complaints about the state of our roads and the manner in which people drive. The situation is described as uncivilized; chaotic, annoying, life-threatening and deadly. And indeed, from time to time it may be. India does have a rather high level of deaths from road accidents. Figures suggest that almost one Goan dies every day on Goan roads, no insignificant figure. I would however, like to present an alternate view of our roads and notions of transport by contrasting two perspectives. The first is one that sees roads and transportation from what I would call a life-affirming perspective, the other the death perspective.

The thoughts expressed in this column occurred to me as I drove through Panjim city, an unwilling occupant of a Tata Safari. Hulking above all of the other traffic in the city, the driver sitting next to me was impatient to unleash the power of the vehicle on the road. Unfortunately, the rest of the universe seemed to conspire against him. People crossed the road, cycles meandered from one lane to another, other vehicles wove in and out of lanes. Life in all its manifestations was spilling out onto the streets interrupting the realization of his dream of smooth and speedy traffic. Slowly negotiating through the crowds was not an option, a speedy movement away was the goal.

What we have here is exactly the conflict between the life affirming perspective and that of death. One perspective seeks the roads as the space to make connections; commercial, social, even amorous. It stresses connectivity, and asserts that time is not of essence. On the contrary, a surfeit of time works to cement these connections. In this happy street scenario, the driver too is invited to participate; smiling, squabbling even, encouraging an obstruction out of his way. Moving, but always engaging as he does so.

The dominant logic regarding roads however sees roads as potential highways. In doing so, it unfortunately asserts a logic of disconnection. Roll up your glasses, block out the external environment, (don’t forget to turn on the AC!) and move speedily from one point to another. The road is the space to indicate your power, and the vehicle and its speed the manner to indicate it. To be sure, if the driver of the Safari bought the death perspective, it was not the driver to blame, but the situation that he found himself while sitting behind that driver’s wheel. The machine is constructed to push life aside and head resolutely towards its destination. We are encouraged through so many mechanisms – advertisements being one major force – to understand all roads as highways. Vehicles and transport are to be understood primarily in this manner. It is little wonder then, that we have so many deaths on our roads. The roads have been constructed to kill, not just physically, but socially, culturally and economically as well.

We should remember the international origins of the modern highway lie in the history of the German autobahn. Wide and smooth, they were built to facilitate automobile travel and to exclude older forms of travel. Though embraced by the Nazi administration, the dream of the autobahn seduced all of the industrial world, since it promised the realization of the industrial dream. In this dream everything (including humans) were seen as machines, worthy of existence only if they could produce to feed the economy. Habitations were seen as production centres where humans worked as machines, or tended machines that produced. Roads connected one production centre to another, and the landscape, no matter how challenging, was to be domesticated to aid this larger project of production (and consumption). The fervour with which the industrial world embraced the idea of the highway suggests to us that the fascist dictatorships of Europe were only the more pernicious forms of industrial society. There is something terribly wrong with the industrial model itself that demands the death of social relations, and shoves aside the slow and the weak. This internal logic is made manifest for us to read through the design of highways and the manner we are urged to consider all roads, highways.

For those familiar with the grand highways of Europe and the US, you will know that there is no life around these highways. Indeed the life that dares enter these zones winds up dead, as roadkill. The commerce on the highway is in the form of the anonymous hospitality of corporate chains, serving uniform, unhealthy food. There is a pattern here we must not miss.

In India on the other hand, as so many of these Europeans tell us, we don’t have highways. We don’t have highways since life in all its glory explodes onto these zones and domesticates these potentially cold, anonymous, dignity-denying spaces. The accidents that we see on Indian roads are the result of the inevitable conflict between these two perspectives. It is a conflict between those that affirm life, and those that have decided to run over it. The accidents are also the logical result of the death perspective, that is built on a negation of human values and of human unpredictability. When human error does manifest itself on these highways, or even roads polluted by the autobahn logic, the number of deaths are catastrophic. These deaths are the most evident cost of the industrial common sense that insists on a machine existence.

From within the death affirming principle of industrialism, surely our roads are a huge mess and a death trap. However, if we embrace the life-affirming perspective it is possible that we would begin to see roads, vehicles and travel from an entirely different point of view! Civilization at the end of the day needs to be geared toward the recognition of life, not its negation.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 2nd Sept 2009)