Transportation in Kathmandu : A Service or burden?

 Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, the city of temples and the land of opportunities. It is a small valley in province no. 3 which covers an area of 665 square km. According to the latest census 2,517,023 people reside in the valley. Here we discuss  one of the major problems of Kathmandu metropolitan that needs immediate attention.

Transportation

Transportation is key infrastructure in any country's development. Especially in Kathmandu, where people are always in hurry, there is a great demand for public vehicles as well as private means of transport. According to latest report, 1.1 million vehicles are registered in Kathmandu. 

Every person is in hurry so he/she wants to get to his/her destination as soon as possible. Public vehicles are the first go to choice for any middle class person, who cannot afford their own private vehicles. So, there is high dependency of people on public vehicles and this has caused crowdedness in vehicles. A vehicle with capacity of 30 passengers is seen to carry nearly 50 passengers. It is very difficult to even stand inside the vehicle which makes it difficult to even breathe. Getting a seat to sit in a public vehicle is next to impossible. The vehicle is so packed that it looks more like radish being tightly packed in bottle to make pickle, rather than transportation. Mostly the micro van, it is so full of people that one is sometimes on top of the other, it is absolutely hectic and horrendous.  For women and old aged people it is even more difficult. This is a serious issue which has not been addressed by government.



Another problem is the condition of road. The roads contain bumps, ditches and is full of dust. The side of roads are full of polythene and plastics wastages. Once you get into the vehicles and the vehicle starts to move, you feel like your are in a accelerated frame of reference as you are repeatedly bounced up and then you fall freely under the influence of gravity. You get to experience physics inside the vehicle. In rainy season the road looks more like a collection of ponds .The improper management of drainage is also a serious concern. There was a news perhaps a couple of years ago that a tourist while walking on the road of Thamel fell into a ditch, which is the worst situation.



Increasing number of bikes
Over the past few years, the price of petroleum oil has sky rocketed. The current price of petrol is 142
rupees/lit. Recently government has also increased the taxi and vehicles' fare. So even for a short distance travel, people have to pay considerably more money than usual. The public vehicle is not available in time, in addition to that people have to pay more to get in a vehicle that is overcrowded. This is not value for service. This situation has lead people to have their own private means of transport especially, motorbikes. So a report has shown that there has been an enormous increase in number of bikes in Kathmandu. There are now more than 800,000 motorcycles in Kathmandu, which makes up nearly 80% of the total vehicle fleet. But sadly these bikes have been a major source of accidents and traffic jam. We see bikes ride by youngsters at high speed and also the bikers have the compulsion to overtake buses or trucks even in the narrow roads, which is causing many accidents. According to the report in 2020, over the past fiscal year 17000 vehicles in the valley were involved in the road accident, out of which 7945 were bikes. The road is now filled with motorbikes which is causing huge traffic jams. The number of bikes is escalating and it is predicted that in near future the roads will be absolutely packed with bikes not even leaving space for people to walk and this problem has been realized by the Kathmandu metropolitan. The greater the rise in number of bikes the greater will be the demand for petroleum. That's basic economics. At the current time where NOC is suffering a huge loss in petroleum due to greater demand, the increase in number of bikes will lead to a catastrophic economic crisis. It has been reported that NOC suffered nearly 8 kharba loss during past six months. The officials of NOC are warning that it could go bankrupt. 




What are the possible solutions?
In my view, the best solution is to improve the condition of public transport and decrease the number of bikes. For that the first thing is to improve the condition of roads. Make sustainable plan, select skillful engineers, make proper study to better the road condition. This can be done by international collaborations and supervision by higher authority. Just widening the road is not the solution. Then, the public vehicles must be made affordable for common people. It can be done by making the fare affordable and improving the condition of vehicles. Old engines must be replaced by efficient ones.  In addition to that, vehicles must function on time meaning not being late to arrive and drop people to destined place. The buses can also provide special treatment to women, old aged people and specially abled person which will be a fantastic thing. The vehicle must not carry passenger more than the capacity and for that the number of public vehicles must be increased and it can be done if we can decrease the number of bikes. It's not that the number of bikes should be reduced the to zero because unless and until the public transportation becomes a better medium for transport, people will still favour to have bike as their private means of transport. People love riding bikes and all those things. Its not bringing the number down to zero, it's just decelerating the further increase in the number, which in this time is escalating everyday. Kathmandu metropolitan has said that it is going to do something soon to manage the bikes. Let's hope for the best.
           
The government can do no better than increase the number electric vehicles. There are only 615 electric vehicles with zero emission which accounts for 0.14% of total vehicles. It is a sustainable approach. It decrease the petroleum dependency, reduces pollution. Norway is a perfect example of this approach. Overall new sales in Norway rose by 25% in2021 to a record 176,276 cars, of which 65% were fully electric.


 These solutions are not easy of course. It will take time. It will take effort. Dependency on public vehicle can be increased only if they are well facilitated. People must feel comfort. So, Kathmandu metropolitan has a huge task ahead of it.

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