11: Westernising Travel Policy: Rickshaw Pullers in Calcutta¹

The transport debate globally has changed out of all recognition in the last five years. Transport has escaped from the narrow, mechanistic world of highway infrastructure and economic development arguments that dominated discussions in the 70s and 80s and is now recognised as a key component of sustainable development and poverty eradication. Transport has significant welfare, environmental and social justice implications just as strong traffic growth has significant negative effects on the economy through congestion and “defensive” expenditures on health care, road traffic accidents and the many diseconomies of urban life in crowded cities. At the level of ordinary citizens going about their everyday business there is a realisation that crowded, polluted and noisy cities are both unacceptable and avoidable. This realisation sharpens when discussions are held about child health or road traffic accidents or the sheer misery of commuting to a place of employment in a city like Calcutta (or Bangkok or Sao Paulo).