Talking Headways Podcast: The Indian Transportation Context

This week I’m chatting with Akshay Mani, a sustainable transportation planner who has worked for Cambridge Systematics in the United States and the World Resources Institute’s EMBARQ program in India. Akshay joined us from Chennai to talk about transportation and the growth of Indian cities.

We discuss India’s rapid urbanization and the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, a $20 billion government program for city infrastructure and needed reforms, which ended in 2014. Some of the money went toward roadway flyovers and other car infrastructure, going against India’s National Urban Transport Policy that is supposed to prioritize the movement of people above the movement of vehicles.

India is seeing the effects of sprawl and increased automobile usage, and in the last segment Akshay shares three reforms that would be game changers for the nation as a whole. You won’t want to miss them.