Slow road travel in India: Anecdotes and opinion piece
Recently, I traveled over vast lakes, oceans, mountains and perhaps, crossed the world of elites as I landed back in Rourkela, my home city in Odisha (eastern part of India). I took an international flight from Chicago to New Delhi, transferred to a domestic flight from New Delhi to Kolkata, took an Uber from the airport to the railway station in Kolkata, and finally reached Rourkela by train. Rourkela doesn’t have flight connectivity yet. Hence, during my travel back here and my journey to a nearby city to visit relatives, I was reminded of the road travel experience here. I wasn’t traveling on these roads for the first time, but coming back from Chicago, I was shocked by how long it took to cover what seemed like very short distances. Chicago is known for its excellent streets and public transit services. I couldn’t help but wonder if the slow road travel challenges in India were something fundamentally different.
Here are two interesting anecdotes from my trips…
The road from Kolkata airport to the railway station
The Kolkata airport is a significant flight hub to connect the eastern parts of India. As I mentioned earlier, one leg of my travel back included taking a cab from the Kolkata airport to the city’s railway junction. The usually busy roads of this metropolitan city were unusually congested. Two-lane roads in both directions had vehicles commuting in at least six different streams, while the design allows for four lanes in total. This sight would surprise a foreigner! Notably, the traffic in the opposite direction was barely moving because vehicles varying from buses to motorcycles were stalled at incomprehensibly weird angles. The most surprising sight was that of an ambulance stuck in the middle with its siren on! Our side of the traffic was no cakewalk either. However, my experienced cab driver managed to steer his way, squeezing through impossible gaps between cars and around dysfunctional road dividers to get me to my destination.
The road from Rourkela to Bhubaneswar
Rourkela is in the state of Odisha, about 320km or 200miles away from the state capital Bhubaneswar. On a round trip to Bhubaneswar to meet my relatives, I traveled on the road for about 8hrs averaging a speed of 40 km/hr or 25 miles/hr. More than three-quarters of this trip was on national or state highways, a twentieth was through some rural patch, and the rest was through urban cities. An average speed on highways of about 50km/hr or 30miles/hr on these roads sharply contrasts with about 65miles/hr in the US. It was raining on my way to Bhubaneswar, but the story wasn’t any different for my return trip on a very dry sunny day. In my view, the primary reasons for the slow road speed were: incomplete and uneven road conditions and stray cattle on roads. Most surprisingly, stray cattle were speed breakers on highways and not just in the rural patches!
To put things in context, as per a recent IMF study, India stands at 127th of 165 countries on the mean road speed index with a mean speed of 58 km/hr or 35 miles/hr. This study considers the travel during the fastest time of the day for 4 to 6 densely populated cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru. My road experiences don’t seem to be outliers. Indian highways have a speed limit of 100km/hr or about 60 miles/hr. The Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways in 2020 had also proposed to increase the highway speed limits by 20 km/hr or 12 miles/hr. My intuition however is that only increasing speed limits will not solve the problem. The typical reasons for slow road commutes in the US in my experience are peak travel hours or diversions due to road construction. However, the answer to what slows the traffic in India seems a little nuanced.
Unusual reasons for delay on roads in India
Well known reasons behind slow road travel in India are delayed and incomplete road construction projects, heavy rain during monsoon, insufficient interconnectivity of roads, and stray cattle. The issues differ for highways, urban roads, and rural roads. Incomplete and poorly finished roads are the most visible reason for delays almost anywhere.
Lack of competent project execution, delays due to land acquisition, and other legal issues are the typical reasons behind this. There have been prior studies, steps taken to address it, and significant progress to overcome this issue. However, in my opinion, the stray cattle on roads is a major overlooked reason for delayed road travel on highways in India. These speed breakers do not come with a signboard! For instance, when cow sheds get flooded in monsoon, we can see cows taking to the road. Adding to this, the herders responsible for the cattle are often nowhere to be seen, evading responsibility and confrontation. This issue leads to serious accidents during monsoon when the road visibilities are low. The main reasons for the delay on urban city roads, in my opinion, are a combination of lack of enough tie-breaking road rules, knowledge of road rules, and rule-break enabling design flaws. On rural city roads, my belief of reasons for delay simply are bad roads due to poor maintenance.
Current solutions and possibilities
Sporadic efforts have been put to address some of these problems, like the stray cat(tle)aclism and road construction delays. Several reasons behind delays in road projects have been studied, and several solutions have been proposed and implemented. However, we are not doing much about the stray cattle. I remember hearing Sadhguru say in one of his talks that, in India, we believe in harmonious living for all beings, that includes cattle. Hence, the cattle feel the road is as much their own as the humans. I agree that harmonious living is our cultural heritage and the need of the hour, but we shouldn’t hide our fatal design flaws behind this argument. Perhaps, this calls for intelligent indigenous (harmonious) design interventions!
A friend in Civil Engineering, who is a researcher in hydrology, tells me that there are non-physical harmless barrier designs that prevent fishes to cross certain boundaries by creating stimulus that repel them. A similar idea of a boundary design on roads that doesn’t harm the cattle but repels them away might be a solution.