Rickshaws against global warming!
Posted: Monday, December 10, 2007 11:23 AM
Filed Under:
On Assignment
By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
NEW DELHI, India – As politicians gather at a
U.N. conference in Bali this week, to haggle over how best to tackle climate change, they should spare a thought for the humble bicycle rickshaw drivers of New Delhi.
The rickshaw wallahs, as they're known locally, have invoked the battle against global warming in their fight to be allowed to stay on the crowded streets of the Indian capital.
I first learned about the plight of the wallahs on a recent visit to the city when the wheezing old taxi I was riding in nearly ran a rickshaw off the road. This isn't altogether unusual in India, where traffic runs on the principle of survival of the fittest – or at least the biggest.
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| Ian Williams / NBC News |
| A rickshaw travels across the busy streets of New Delhi, India. |
All the same, my driver's reaction seemed unusually hostile. The rickshaw shouldn't be on the road, clogging it up, he snarled, and anyway it was now illegal for them to come to this part of town.
That surprised me too, since I've yet to find any Delhi driver who regards traffic rules as anything more than advisory.
I decided to investigate further, since I rather like the old rickshaws. They may not be much to look at, and sitting behind a sweating, straining cyclist, his rickshaw squeaking and wobbling amid the Delhi gridlock, might be regarded by some as rather cruel. But to me Indian cities just wouldn't be the same without them.
'Modern' enough?
In Delhi alone there are more than 80,000 licensed rickshaws, though the number is estimated to be more than five times that. In some parts of the bustling old city, they can be the only way of accessing narrow lanes.
I soon discovered that, yes, the Delhi authorities have indeed banned them from Delhi's main corridors as well as parts of the old city.
But the wallahs are fighting back, and feisty local environmentalists have taken up their cause.
The NGO, Initiative for Transportation and Development Programs, has challenged the ban in the Delhi High Court demanding the authorities provide a dedicated track for the cycle rickshaws on all main roads.
They told the court the ban on rickshaws would worsen air pollution if cars replaced them.
The police told the court that getting rid of the rickshaws would help make Delhi a "modern" city.
"Delhi traffic police are of the opinion that cycle-rickshaws are extremely traffic hazardous and accident-prone," they said in a statement to the court. They said traffic was a nightmare because of the "infiltration," of cycle-rickshaws.
Serious stuff.
Cycle rickshaws may not conform to the Delhi police's view of what makes a modern city, but many capitals of more developed countries are beginning to see them as part of the solution to environmental problems. They can now be seen in London, Oxford, Paris, Singapore – even New York City, where they are called pedicabs. And London's considering a system of licensing for cycle rickshaws.
And as for the pollution, Delhi's Center for Science and Environment is warning that the city faces a winter of smog, with heightened risk of respiratory diseases, because the staggering increase in the number of motor vehicles, particularly diesel-fueled cars.
It's not the first time an Indian city has tried to get rid of rickshaws. Calcutta tried recently to ban the hand-pulled variety, the city's communist authorities arguing these leftovers from the days of the British Raj are inhumane. But the rickshaw pullers don't see it that way and so far they're refusing to give way.
In Delhi, the High Court is still chewing over the environmentalists' petition.
While I do hope something of substance comes out of Bali this week, I have my doubts. It may well be that local battles like the one being fought by Delhi's rickshaw wallahs make more difference than two weeks of talking in the sun in the luxury of an Indonesian tropical island.
