Privatisation of public space

Public space is a concept that we as an urbanizing society seem to be not catching up with in western terms in our obsession with growth and other popular notions of comfort and status. A significant evidence strides proudly before us everyday, a gleaming metallic box mounted on four wheels - the car, a marvel invented by the sheer ingenuity of mankind, a disaster in the making all credit to mankind again. 

 

It was while driving down to office on my two-wheeled oil guzzler, cursing huge concoctions of wheels that were righteously claiming their right of way over bicycles and pedestrians, that I realized how directly cars signify exemplify the vicious cycle in resource allocation in free markets. It was the same day I read that worldwide traffic rules say that pedestrians have a right of way on roads.

 

Coming back to resource allocation, take the resource of public space-the commons.

 

Cars have taken up a major chunk of space on roads – precious public space for mobility, because of their monetary power to do so. In other words, I buy a car; I own the space that my car occupies on the road. True, I have paid road tax. I can even claim that I am part of the minuscule section of income tax-payers in India, whose money has been used in building those roads in the first place.

 

Whereas, the next person doesn’t earn enough to pay tax, nor to buy a car. His right of mobility has taken back seat against the right of citizens to own and drive a car, as there is only so much space available on the road and that has to be shared. His right to use that tiny piece of public space that his feet occupy has been reigned over by the right of a car owner to park his 4-wheeled steed. The pedestrian slowly gets excluded from urban roads.

 

A mobility handicap in a metro is as good as an economic handicap. Newly created wealth gets re-allocated to the car-owner who can pay for it using the resources he has saved by easy mobility. He can consume it for betterment in life, as he has saved personal energy in commuting. He can buy yet another car which can exclude yet another pedestrian from urban public life.

 

Cars have effectively managed to privatize most of the public space available on road. What’s more, they claim that the ‘menace of two wheelers’ in our roads, and the ‘lack of traffic sense among our pedestrians’ are the problems in the urban transport system today. They just need to look around to find every second inch of our roads covered by a car occupying half the space that a bus occupies, but carrying just one person – 1/35^th that a bus carries.