Delhi needs to localise public mobility: Vincente Guallart

VINCENTE GUALLART is Barcelona’s chief architect who has been working overtime to keep up the planning standards of his city which is a role model for big town developers all over the world. MEENAKSHI RAO met up with him in Barcelona to seek some answers for the traffic madness that is Delhi. Excerpts of the conversation:

Do you think for expanding cities like Delhi, metro rails, dedicated rapid bus corridors and other public transport systems is the right way to go?

A city is a complex system and should not grow in an unplanned or localised manner. The first question in a big city is whether you want to grow in the periphery or you want to promote other cities around you, like creating satellite cities which Paris did.

Cities that are too big to organize a good life for their citizen are unviable and unsafe cities. For cities like Delhi, which was built long back and has been incoherently expanding ever since, the way to go is to keep constantly upgrading itself. So to make new metro lines or bus corridors is a good strategy but there is also need to localise public mobility. The question of mobility in a city is related to where its people live and how far they are commuting to work.

If a city has a segregated functionality (residential areas away far from office areas), collapse is as good as guaranteed. So, the trick is – alongside developing a new transportation system, one should start to think about making neighbourhoods of mix use so that people move lesser and lesser to go to work.

What have you envisaged for Barcelona and what measures are you taking to keep the city away from traffic jams?

Barcelona wants to reduce private mobility by 30 per cent in the next 20 years. So, the new public transportation system is based on the new bus grid, shared cars and even shared bikes are being promoted. Individual cars are still part of Barcelona’s industrial culture but we are at present engaged in developing a new ecological culture for our city which will go a long way in reducing traffic on our roads by increasing eco awareness among our citizens.

Do you think that it is always right for a city to grow upwards, like skyscrapers?

Growing upwards is a good strategy to densify the city in its central areas where train lines etc make it more accessible. But tall buildings should have a ground floor that should be very active. New York is a good example of a city with tall buildings and a lot of urban activity on the ground floor.

What are the revolutionary measures you are taking to shape up Barcelona?

The most important step is to have a new mantra which defines what we want to be: We want to become a self-sufficient city organized with productive neighbourhood at human speed inside a hyper-connected zero emissions city. We want that industry comes back to the city, but in a new way related to digital fabrication. We want that all buildings produce the energy that they need. We want that green areas are in every part of the city.

We want to reduce 30 per cent of space for cars in the city. And we want that all parts of the city to be connected by good public transportation system based on good technologies.

What route do you think Delhi’s planners should take considering the megapolis is expanding by the minute and influx of migrants never stops? Have you visited Delhi? If yes, do you think it can be brought back to sanity?

The world over, we need a new vision for big cities. We need to promote the neighbourhoods aggressively, in your case Noida, Gurgaon, and Faridabad. We cannot have cities with great centres and very poor areas in the periphery. We should make the best mix of slow cities (like eco-districts) with smart cities. The solution is to think of Delhi not just as Delhi but as a network of small cities.

 Is there an innovative way to deal with planning issues of safety, traffic and ease of access?

The first step for urbanity is a good street as it is the most used public place. You need to have good streets with infrastructures that are very clean and very efficient. Housing, is the second most crucial aspect of a well-planned city.

Your town planning ideas are out of the ordinary. Where did you get them from, especially about cutting down bus lines, not constructing metros and the like?

Barcelona has a long tradition of its people thinking about the city and its future. So we are focussed on developing rational methods of urbanity. The School of Barcelona and the Institute of Advanced Architecture are two places where there is constant research on the future of our city. Basically, when future arrives, we are ready for it. And the other thing (and may be the most important) is that we have very strong politicians who have a clear vision of transforming our city in a way that the quality of life of our citizens is upgraded.

Barcelona is a city where every economic or social evolution is reflected in its public space. There are many cities where the benefits only accrue to the richest neighbourhoods. But we insist on a democratic approach which has worked wonders for us.

Since Barcelona is a role model in urban planning, we are constantly engaged in sharing our knowledge with other cities and our City Protocol preaches collective progress of all cities around the world. I think India is a great upcoming nation which should work hard at upgrading its cities in a manner that offers a better life to its citizens.

Is it possible to bring about the required changes in a fully developed city like Delhi? Will it not be impossible to reverse the thinking on infrastructure development when it has been already done in a certain manner?

Yes, it’s possible. In periods of industrialisation, cities tend to increase the space for cars. In fact, many cities in Spain, Barcelona included, had elevated roads in the city, because the popular perception was that with more car space, the traffic would work better. But this is not true at all. More space for cars means more cars and then more collapse. This is the reason why we are pulling down all our elevated roads. The last one we will demolish will be the one in Plaza de la Glorias.

A city starts were the highways end. In New York City, for example, planners were thinking of building a highway in the 5th Avenue in the 50s but they stopped midway, for the same reasons I gave you above. If you want to improve the infrastructure of Delhi, you need to change the way the city works. You need to reduce what we call ‘the obligated mobility’. People should move less, so you should improve public transportation and reorganise the city’s activities. 

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 20 October, 2013