4.1 Principles
The Indian National Green Party’s transport policy is based on:
a) enabling people to obtain access to a wide range of destinations, goods and services in a safe, timely and energy-efficient manner which has low environmental impact;
b) the recognition that urban form and design are crucial aspects of transforming transport policy;
c) using integrated transport and urban planning, and incorporating environmental and social costs, so that energy-efficient modes of transport (walking, cycling, public transport, rail, coastal shipping) and non-transport solutions are able to compete for funding with the provision of facilities for cars and trucks;
d) empowering local communities so that they can make informed choices;
e) getting the most out of existing facilities by managing demand, rather than continually building facilities to meet projected demands; and
f) favouring walking, cycling and public transport as the preferred modes of “passenger” transport.
4.2 Goals
The Indian National Green Party aim to:
a) dramatically reduce per capita and overall use of fossil fuels for transport, making the system sustainable into the future;
b) reduce car ownership and use for urban commuting while improving the quality of service provided by public transport, especially in relation to frequency, speed and convenience;
c) increase recognition that access to an adequate level of public transport services is a community right and that these services should remain under public control and not be subjected to full cost recovery;
d) make users of private transport aware of, and ultimately pay for, the full costs of their transport choices;
e) increase opportunities for the community to participate in integrated transport and urban planning;
f) shift urban form towards the development of urban villages, to bring people and jobs together in areas well-serviced by public transport;
g) reduce the direct impacts of transport infrastructure (e.g. noise, air pollution) on urban neighbourhoods and provide fair compensation for those affected by new transport infrastructure;
h) improve the safety of roads, especially for pedestrians and cyclists, and of airways and sea-lanes;
i) provide improved access to transport services for residents of rural India;
j) improve services for those with special needs, including people with disabilities, youth and older people; and
k) encourage the cycling and walking amenity of the streets by supporting, for example, lower urban speed limits on residential roads.
4.3 Short Term Targets
4.3.1 Overall
The Indian National Green Party will work to:
a) ensure the adoption of national standards for ambient air quality equal to or better than world best practice;
b) ensure the adoption of national noise and emissions standards for petrol and diesel vehicles equal to or better than world best practice; these standards will include requirements for testing; and
c) develop targets for self-containment levels in urban planning; that is, measures of the degree to which jobs, retailing and local services are located with residential developments.
4.3.2 Land Transport
The Indian National Green Party will work to:
a) in each major city, double the market share (in passenger kilometres) held by public transport compared with private cars by 2010;
c) ensure the adoption of targets for the average fuel efficiency of new additions to the national car fleet of 5.0 litres per 100 km by 2005, reducing to 4.0 litres per 100 km by 2010;
d) ensure the adoption of mandatory fuel-efficiency labelling of new cars;
e) make all central funding or approvals for transport projects contingent on the achievement of specified environmental and social criteria; these criteria will include air quality standards (including greenhouse emissions), environmental protection benchmarks and public participation;
f) ensure that in planning any new road construction, thorough consideration is given to the need for the road, viable public transport alternatives, destructive impact on local communities and the external costs to the environment.
4.3.3 Ports and Shipping
The Indian National Green Party will work to:
a) cap the number of port sites at the present number;
b) amend rules to expose oil tankers to strict and unlimited liability when travelling within Indian waters, bringing India into line with the world best practice embodied in the United States Oil Pollution Act 1990 ; and
c) institute strict and mandatory controls on ballast water discharges and on other practices that put the Indian marine environment at risk.
4.3.4 Air Transport
Recognising that air transport causes considerable environmental damage and is also less fuel efficient by a large factor than ground transport, particularly in comparison to transport by rail or by sea, the Indian National Green Party consider it important that the environmental costs of air transport are taken into account openly and incorporated into the cost of air travel.
The Indian National Green Party believe there are many unexplored possibilities for decreasing the dependence on air travel. One of these is the expansion of teleconferencing. In general, the Indian National Green Party will support measures such as tax incentives which will encourage people to fly less.
The Indian National Green Party recognise that bad planning in a number of cases has caused housing areas near airports to have an unacceptable noise level and support moves to remedy such mistakes, for example through modifying flying patterns and airport operations and compensating residents in the most affected areas.