{"id":241581,"date":"2023-05-09T20:31:32","date_gmt":"2023-05-09T15:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=241581"},"modified":"2023-05-09T20:31:32","modified_gmt":"2023-05-09T15:01:32","slug":"roads-traffic-and-gdp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/roads-traffic-and-gdp\/","title":{"rendered":"Roads, traffic and GDP"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source-<\/strong> The post is based on the article \u201cRoads, traffic and GDP\u201d published in the \u201cBusiness Standard\u201d on 9th May 2023.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: <\/strong>GS 2 –<\/strong> Government policies and interventions. GS 1 – Urbanisation<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>– The article explains the issues of traffic management in India.<\/p>\n

Why does traffic movement need to be a significant part of development economics and public policy in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The chaotic and slow traffic movement<\/strong> causes significant wastage of time and energy<\/strong>. It affects productivity and gross domestic product.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Traffic movement is not the only solution for the growth rate of GDP.\u00a0 But policy to improve traffic movement is a part of \u201csmall\u201d policy changes<\/strong>. These policy changes can<\/strong> make a big difference to the growth rate of GDP.<\/p>\n

Improving traffic movement can have significant effects on welfare<\/strong>. This is due to factors such as tension, road rage, and accidents that are waiting to happen.<\/p>\n

What are the reasons for poor traffic management in cities?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Investment can be in tangible assets or intangible assets<\/strong>. Tangible assets include roads. Intangible assets include a sound system for smooth traffic movement.<\/p>\n

India is spending too much money on tangible assets<\/strong> and very little on intangible assets<\/strong>. There is a tendency to spend on wider roads and flyovers. But there is inadequate attention<\/strong> to smooth traffic movement<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

India often takes pride in world class highways<\/strong>. However, the opportunity cost <\/strong>of a world-class highway is very high.<\/p>\n

Parking space<\/strong> for vehicles is limited in cities in India. Parts of the roads are used as parking spaces. This slows down traffic considerably.<\/p>\n

Master plans of cities<\/strong> often do not allocate enough spaces for the purpose. Town planners feel that they need to focus on providing land for housing, commerce<\/strong> rather than on less useful purposes<\/strong> like parking.<\/p>\n

What is the way forward for improving traffic management in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Only about 0.2% of national land mass<\/strong> in India is used in the top 10 cities. This shows that there is ample scope for increasing land<\/strong> for cities. This can pave the way for providing far more spaces for parking in existing and new cities.<\/p>\n

There is a need to reconsider the licensing<\/strong> of drivers. At present, the focus is on checking whether a person seeking a licence can drive a vehicle. But there is also a need to check adequately that the applicant can drive without adversely affecting others. <\/strong><\/p>\n

A change in licensing policy<\/strong> can help in improving the movement of traffic on roads.<\/p>\n

India needs good highways<\/strong>, but not necessarily world-class highways. <\/strong>The difference between the cost of building a good highway and a world-class highway can be very large. The money saved can be used to improve the traffic movement<\/strong> within cities and small towns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source- The post is based on the article \u201cRoads, traffic and GDP\u201d published in the \u201cBusiness Standard\u201d on 9th May 2023. Syllabus: GS 2 – Government policies and interventions. GS 1 – Urbanisation News– The article explains the issues of traffic management in India. Why does traffic movement need to be a significant part of… Continue reading Roads, traffic and GDP<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[10503,263,212],"class_list":["post-241581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-business-standard","tag-gs-paper-1","tag-gs-paper-2","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704632863},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}