Kathmandu is a city with a high potential of becoming cycle friendly. An obvious reason is that cycle is one of the solutions to the city’s pollution. But a 2004 report on Global Green House Gas (GHG) emission states that transportation only accounts for 13 percent of GHG emission, one percent less than agriculture. In the context of Nepal, the statistics might be different, because agriculture in Nepal is still technologically rudimentary, and around 9,000 new automobiles add burden to the Nepali road and air every year.
Kathmandu can have lots of benefits from, and equally more compelling reasons for being a cycle friendly city. The growing sedentary life style in the city also demands cycle-friendliness. This popular post I read somewhere summarizes it best; “Cycle runs on fat and saves you money” but “motor-vehicle runs on money and makes you fat.” And when big and developed cities like Barcelona, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Berlin can ride to work or school, why can’t Kathmandu attempt to start the same culture? A few reasons why Kathmandu must be a cycle-friendly city are introduced below.
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External Costs
Studies have shown that bicycles are known to have lowest external costs of transportation like accidents, noise, health, visual impacts, urban effects, nature, and landscape. Roads in Kathmandu, throughout the day, are overly crowded with automobiles, and the ineffective system to check for the quality of both engine and fuel of these motor-vehicles, especially of motorcycles, has surely driven up external cost. In recent times, with the rise of these automobiles, we have also seen a huge rise in road related accidents and deaths.
Traffic management seems to have become more negligent than before, with roads lacking functional and well-placed traffic lights. Some roads got zebra crossings only recently, but they are now peeling off and are on the verge of becoming non-existent like before. Such lack of basic standards and rules are making our roads more dangerous and less friendly. And since Kathmandu has no possibility of getting mass transit vehicles like trains in the near future, creating a cycle friendly city has become the absolute necessity.
Rebound Effects
Due to unfinished business, road expansion has become synonymous to “mess” in Kathmandu. Every time a few roads here and there are expanded to ease the traffic flow, the traffic gets more clogged. Rebound effect explains this—the wider the roads, the easier it is to ply one more vehicle. So, people buy more vehicles to compensate for the lack of well-managed and clean public vehicles, and populate the roads more. Thus the attempt of easing vehicular movement ends with more vehicles on the road, and our roads end up with same or even worse traffic conditions.
Road expansion is never going to solve current traffic problems unless other measures like mass transit systems are introduced, which will induce people to put a voluntary cap on more private vehicles. Hence, this problem needs a different approach, and constructing cycle lanes is the first step. The recent news about construction of a two-way cycle lane in the soon-to-be-started Kalanki-Koteshwor road expansion is a welcome move.
Condition of existing roads: Most inner-city roads in Kathmandu can hardly accommodate more than two pedestrians, but we still wish for microbus service penetration into each of our houses, which is beyond the capacity of these impossibly narrow alleys. The speed and loud horns of microbuses and motorcycles makes life risky for residents of quarters closest to the road. Narrow roads must be reserved for cycles only during rush hours, and opened to other motor-vehicles at other times. To ease the traffic flow in these areas, wider alternative roads must be built at a reasonable distance from such dwellings so as to serve a number of these countless narrow alleys at one go.
Internalizing costs
Our transportation industry relies completely on import (they comprise almost a quarter of total national imports), since almost 100 percent of the fuel we use is imported, with a tell-tale story in the supply side that we all know. If we make the city cycle friendly, not only can we internalize some of these costs, but we can also promote our dwindling manufacturing sector. Nepal has its own cycle-assembling companies like Chain Bike, an assembled product from which, called Jomsom Bike, was also gifted to ex-Prime Minister Dr Bhattarai. Hence the move towards cycle-city can be a double edged sword, to cut costs and create a demand-pull to revive the manufacturing and assembling in Nepali market at the same time.
Climate and landscape
The temperate climate and almost flat landscape of Kathmandu also best support it in being a cycle city.
Inner roads in Kathmandu can’t accommodate more than two pedestrians, but we still want microbuses to reach every alley.
Social perspective: Every city must have a popular ride which most of its residents can afford. In this aspect, I am an ardent supporter of mass public transportation like trains or even big buses. Kathmandu lacks the former, and the latter (though they aren’t as big as we would like to have) are in such deplorable conditions that they are not a popular choice. Most of the city dwellers cannot afford motor-vehicles, and Kathmandu is definitely too big for our feet. In this context, promoting Kathmandu as a cycle city seems to be the most affordable move to address this lack of popular and affordable transportation. Low initial investment, almost zero running cost and minimum maintenance cost of bicycles match best with our low purchasing power capability. Even with the current state of infrastructure, cycle lanes can run on low maintenance for long. The size of cycles is also hugely beneficial in reducing both traffic congestion and the problem of parking. With all these benefits of being a cycle friendly city, what’s the harm in adopting cycle culture?
A good number of city residents live in hopes of being able to safely ride a cycle in comfortable cycle lanes in the city soon. I am among them, and I wish it be fulfilled soon. Amen!
The author is Program Manager at Janaki Technology Pvt. Ltd.
barshaaa@gmail.com
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