Govt committed to easy life of Urban citizen

Ministry of UD to push dense urban growth along mass transit corridors for better living experience 

To effectively address the emerging urbanization challenges, the Ministry of Urban Development has come out with a multi-pronged policy framework to promote living close to mass urban transit corridors. This new initiatives seeks to promote ‘Transit Oriented Development (TOD)’ which enables people to live within walking or cycling distance from transit corridors like the Metros, Monorail and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridors, currently being taken up on a large scale. The Ministry has formulated a ‘National Transit Oriented Development Policy’ which will be  discussed with the States and Union Territories at a National Workshop on Urban Development to be held Tuesday next week. This policy seeks to enhance the depth of understanding of States and UTs on TOD as a viable solution to many of the challenges like haphazard urban growth and sprawl, mobility, rapidly rising private vehicles on roads,  pollution, housing choices etc.. This new urban design and planning in the form of TOD, is being incentivesed by the Ministry under two more initiatives viz., Metro Policy and Green Urban Mobility Scheme which also will be discussed with States and UTS for taking them on board.            Under TOD, city densification will be promoted along mass transit corridors through vertical construction by substantially enhancing  FARs (Floor Area Ratio) backed by  promotion of Non-motorised Transport Infrastructure for walking and cycling to transport stations, development of street networks in the influence zone of transit corridors, multi-modal integration, effective first and last mile connectivity through feeder services to enable people access public transit in 5 to 10 minutes  from home and work places.   Dense living along transit corridors besides resulting in enhanced living and travel experience, will also improve ridership of mass transit systems. If properly executed, TOD could emerge as a means of financing mass transit project, for which the demand is growing.