City of Pune Making Space for Transit and People

Institution of Transportation and Development Policy What have been the big on-the-ground changes in Pune for creating better transit infrastructure? For years, Pune has been moving closer to becoming a best practice for Indian cities.  In 2015, the city launched the Rainbow bus rapid transit (BRT) system promised in 2007. Today, the corridor runs more than 39 kilometres. It has high-quality and best-practice design features, and has brought more than 12 percent of its ridership from other modes, primarily private cars. With massive investments proposed to expand the system, the Rainbow BRT network is expected to almost double in size and service an additional 48 kilometres by 2018.  Pune has also developed a parking policy to improve street management by creating designated parking spaces and formalizes parking payments, which will be implemented soon. Additional steps taken to make city pedestrian friendly Pune has been accelerating its commitment to all sustainable transit modes, particularly with significant growth in pedestrian infrastructure. Pune has become a regional leader in complete streets, in which streets are designed for all users, rather than only for cars. Pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, and transit riders with safe access. It plans to increase its complete streets by 20 kilometres in the upcoming year. Additionally, Pune has retrofitted 15 kilometres of footpaths along streets to give pedestrians safe passage and plans to expand these another 35 kilometres. In March 2019, it implemented a bike sharing program with 4000 bicycles in use. For the last 4 years, the Pune Municipal Corporation has invested over 50% of the transportation budget into walking, cycling, and bus infrastructure, a departure from previous budget allocations. The developments in the Pune BRT System Rainbow BRT, one of the first BRTs in India has added 200 CNG (compressed natural gas) and 25 electric buses to its fleet. It plans to add 400 CNG and 125 electric buses in the upcoming year to grow the fleet to 2500 buses by 2019. The BRT corridor has expanded to 50 kilometres and plans to expand the corridor to 90 kilometres. Pune’s success story Pune’s successes have already inspired many cities in India to adopt new measures for sustainability and equity. Nashik has hired urban design firms for its Complete Streets network; Chennai is keen on expanding its complete streets into a network and setting up a BRT system, learning from Pune’s journey so far.