This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 09 May 2008, by gibreel ferishta.
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09 May 08
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Prize has held up, as champions, an organisation and individuals who are cautious, conservative and play strictly by the book when searching for answers to tackling climate change. There is nothing wrong in being so. Except that this is a time the world needs to re-invent what it means by growth and development. It needs hard answers for a crisis that is already hitting large parts of the poorest world, but has been created because of economic wealth and power.
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But nobody says why, if it is so easy, is it that cities of the rich world have never made the transition to mass rapid transport — bus, light or metro rail — and restricted the growth of private gas-guzzling cars? In fact, all evidence shows transport- and personal vehicle-related greenhouse gas emissions are galloping in the rich ‘developed' world.
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The first stretch runs from Delhi's poorest areas to its poshest. BRT has been plagued with bad media coverage. And educated people will tell you the idea is a mad one — how can buses run in the middle of the road, taking space away from cars? BRT reduces car space, and this is just not acceptable.
The fact is space has not been reduced; for once, it has been equitably allocated to the users of the road. In this stretch in my rich city (Delhi has the highest per capita income in the country), buses transport over 60 per cent of the commuters; cars and two-wheelers roughly 20 per cent. It is also clear that cars are growing so exponentially that the city is running out of road space even as it builds new roads and new flyovers. It is no surprise the city is fighting congestion and air pollution.
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