co-ordination with the Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service (AMTS) feeder bus services is poor. This takes away the very goal of interconnected modes of transport that underpins a BRT system and has discouraged cycling as a mode of commuting to the BRT stations. This has increased travel trip costs and users have been forced into walking longer than usual distances. Lack of crossing facilities makes it unsafe to cross heavy traffic roads to reach BRT stops, discouraging aged/very young people. The other major reconfiguration has been encroachment of on-street parking on newly increased road width, walkways, or bicycle paths—resulting in a slow privatisation of apparently public space. Private spaces have been reconfigured through the “eviction of 2600 families situated in the (poorer) eastern section of Ahmedabad” [5], leading to further social inequity. There have also been effects on the land-use policies of Ahmedabad, like increased land prices and sale of additional FAR near BRT corridors. In these cases, the private sector developers who represent the economic and social elite of the city
have received a major share of profits. The freeing up of old textile mill land by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) created a possibility for inclusive redevelopment, but the lack of strategic and integrated development has limited resettlement of the poor. Finally, if the medium is the message [11], then the message sent by the self-contained Janmarg project – with its private lanes, sanitised stations, and lack of links to other transport modes—is that of an exclusive, inequitable private space in the streets of Ahmedabad. THE POLITICS OF TRANSPORT Transport infrastructure is seen as critical to making cities competitive globally and working towards an image of the world-class city. Janmarg has similarly invested heavily in trying to carefully shape a powerful brand identity and image. Through heavy advertising and branding it has tried to cultivate an image as that of a clean, tidy, timely and efficient service – one that by virtue of its glamour has resulted in local, national and international recognition, motivated and supported by the ruling state government.
130 131