DECEMBER 2006 :: COVER STORY : AUTOS

Road Rage
India Tries to Keep Up With Traffic

By John Larkin
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

To much of the outside world, India is a nation brimming over with people. Now add cars to that picture.

A surging economy has delivered higher incomes and easy credit to a growing Indian middle class, making cars affordable to millions of people. With cash on hand, Indians are splurging on a new family car, sometimes two. The number of vehicles on the road has more than tripled to 67 million since 1991.

This is good news for India's car-hungry citizens, who have more choices of products than ever before. It's also a boon for the local auto industry, and for the people getting jobs with foreign auto makers that are expanding their operations in India.

But when India's millions of new drivers climb into their cars and hit the road, they are facing the flip side of their new prosperity: The country's long-neglected road network is unprepared for the onslaught of traffic. Though several massive road-improvement projects are under way, it doesn't appear that the national and local governments are keeping up with the surge in traffic.

With one of the world's fastest-growing economies, India may be a model of the power of economic reform. But its story is also a cautionary tale about the resulting strains on a country's transportation system.

The commercial capital of Mumbai is a microcosm of India's struggle to deal with a deluge of cars. The city of 12 million people is laid out on a north-south axis, with only one major road connecting the business hub in the south with the airports and booming suburbs to the north. There are no major east-west arteries.

The result is traffic mayhem, frayed tempers, and trips across town that have to be planned as thoroughly as a military exercise. Cars and trucks jostle with three-wheeled rickshaws and motor scooters on rutted roads.

Every day sees 300 new vehicles registered in Mumbai. The number of cars in the city rose to more than one million at last count in 2001, from 309,000 in 1981. It will hit 1.6 million by 2011, says R. Ramana, a senior transportation planner for the city.

City planners say a new bridge, the Bandra-Worli Sealink, will ease some of the pain. This bridge is expected to siphon traffic off the main road, which is roughly parallel. Its builders say it will be completed by 2008. The cost is estimated at $316 million.

The sea link is the most ambitious project under construction in Mumbai, but not the only one. The city's government is laying out two roads across Mumbai as well. Additionally, says Mr. Ramana, nearly $70 million is being spent on massive upgrades to about one-quarter of the city's more than 1,100 miles of roads, including road-widening projects and overpasses at choke points.

Will it be enough? Any major infrastructure project takes a long time in India, where the best-laid plans often founder on red tape and on difficulty in obtaining land. The Bandra-Worli Sealink is already three years past its original completion target. Couple that with rising vehicle numbers, and the new roads may not make as much difference as hoped by the time they are completed.

"The city is growing even as we are trying to decongest it," says Sharad Sabnis, an engineer working on the project. "Something has to be done to curb demand for cars."

Efforts along those lines, however, seem similarly inadequate. Indian cities are trying to bolster public transportation. New Delhi's metro system, launched in 2002, carries 2.2 million passengers a day. The capital's metro is seen as a model for Mumbai's, where construction has started on 26 stations to supplement the city's commuter-train network. The state government has also approved the construction of an elevated light-rail project in Mumbai.

At the same time, however, the national government has cut the excise tax on small cars to 16% from 24%, which will only boost demand. The measure is intended to help transform India into a manufacturing hub for small cars.