Sustainable Urban Transport Conference Organized in Pokhara

 Clean Energy Nepal (CEN) and Clean Air Network Nepal (CANN) together with Pokhara Sub metropolitan City (PSMC) organized Pokhara Sustainable Urban Transport Conference on 25^th September 2015 in Pokhara. The conference was organized to bring stakeholders together to initiate policy dialogues, enhance partnership among stakeholders, and share initiatives and best practices on sustainable urban transportation to support Pokhara Valley for better transport plans.

Welcoming participants, Mr. Uday Bahadur Rana Magar, Chief executive officer of PSMC highlighted the rapid urbanization of Pokhara, and said that Pokhara will not remain as beautiful if we fail to do proper urban planning.  Chief Guest Western Regional Administration Chief said that proper planning and master plan are required for developing Pokhara as a clean, green and sustainable city.

Mr. Bhushan Tuladhar, South Asia Regional Technical Director of UN-Habitat presented the concept of sustainable urban transport development, best practices from around the world and way forward for promoting sustainable transportation in Pokhara. He highlighted the importance of integrated land-use and urban transport planning, and compact mixed use development near new or existing public transportation infrastructure. He also shared the experience of widening of roads in Kathmandu Valley, which has led to increase in traffic accidents, usage of private vehicles and discourage walking and cycling. He concluded recommending to do people-centric urban planning and to ensure that the mobility needs of all people, particularly the poor & vulnerable.

Mr. Prashanta Khanal, Program Coordinator of CEN presented the concepts and principles of parking management. “Parking is not a right as we assume, it’s a commodity and we should pay for the usage”, he said. He further added building more parking spaces will never solve the parking or urban transport problems, but further aggravates the problem. He recommended PSMC to formulate parking policy and effective enforcement of parking laws. “Parking policy should address the short-term problems, but most importantly support the long-term goals of sustainable urban mobility”, he said.

Ms. Kanica Gola, Research Assistant from CANN and Clean Air Asia shared the scenario and best practices of urban transportation in Indian Cities and Pokhara. “We cannot build our way out of congestion if we keep building infrastructures for cars not people”, she said giving examples of urban highway development in Delhi. She said that cities in India are slowly realizing the importance of sustainable transport and cities such as Ahmedabad has built Bus Rapid Transit system and Mumbai has formulated ‘pedestrian first policy’. “Although the Pokhara’s transport system is not as bad as Kathmandu, but is slowly deteriorating with rapid growth of vehicles and unplanned urbanization”, she said. She recommended building network of cycle track, pedestrian-friendly street design, improvement of existing public transportation, and integrated land-use planning.  

Sharing the cycling culture in Netherlands, which has more number of bicycles than population, Mr. Bart Bakker from Aalborg University said that the practices of cycling promotion around the world and the mistakes others have made are essential for promoting cycling in Pokhara. Cycling has wider benefits from decreasing pollution and accidents, eliminating congestion and car parking problems, improving public health and increasing economic gain. “Awareness, infrastructures and rules/regulations are three basic requirements for promoting cycling”, he said.

Representatives from key local government agencies and transport practitioner participated in the panel discussion. The panelists shared the plans and programs of their respective organizations, challenges and way forward for improving the transport system. “With the recent decision to add ten wards in PSMC, the size of the city has increased five folds, and lack of human and financial resources is the major challenges to implement plans and programmes”, said Mr. Teknath Sapkota, Urban Governance Expert of PSMC. He said that PSMC is in the process of developing a Strategic Plan and Municipal Transport Plan, which can be an opportunity to improve Pokhara's transportation system in a planned manner.

“Main problems for bus operators is route structure and lack of bus parks and bus stops”, said Mr. Chhetra Rana, Vice President of Pokhara Bus Entrepreneurs Committee. He requested support from city government to improve the public transportation. “Department of Road is responsible for maintaining major roads and highways but it does not have mandate or resources to maintain or manage urban streets”, said Mr. Bishwa Lal Shrestha of Road Division Pokhara. “We are currently trying to mainstream road safety in our work by allocating 15 to 20% of our maintenance budget on road safety related issues, and considering developing a cycle lane as a pilot project”, he further added. He said that lack of clear jurisdiction and responsibilities of different agencies on urban roads is the major challenge.

Mr. Nawaraj Nepali, Urban Governance Expert of Lekhnath Municipality said “The municipality is preparing Municipal Transport Master Plan, which will identify streets and characterize them”. Mr. Netra Timilsina from PSMC said that it plans to invest in sustainable transport to the extent possible although the municipality has limited resources, and the Strategic Plan that is being prepared will guide the process. He further added that the number of cyclists has increased significantly in last few years and the municipality is also thinking of investing in cycling infrastructure. Mr. Vivek Gupta, Transport Engineer and Consultant for developing Municipal Transport Master Plans said that the Municipal Transport Master Plans are being prepared for different municipalities and so far 70 such plans have been prepared. However, in the absence of proper guidelines, these plans are often limited to identifying road networks and their characterization. He said that there is need of raising awareness on sustainable urban transportation at both local level and policy level.

Around 45 participants from local governmental agencies, regional agencies, non-governmental agencies, developmental agencies, transport experts, urban planners, academia, private sectors and media personnel participated in the conference.