City development plans and transportation plans are often carried out in silos, resulting in fragmented solutions that fail to address the everyday mobility needs of people. While it is commonly assumed that individuals choose their mode of transport based on affordability, factors like proximity, ease of access, travel time play a much larger role in shaping these decisions. Encouraging behavioural shifts toward sustainable transport modes such as walking, cycling, and public transit requires more than awareness. It demands tangible incentives and supportive infrastructure. These, in turn, can only be achieved through cities that are deliberately designed to prioritise sustainable mobility. A major step in this direction lies in integrating land use planning with transport planning.
Linkages between land use and transport
Land use refers to how human activities are distributed across land, encompassing various economic and cultural functions such as residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, recreational, and conservation purposes. It reflects the functional characteristics of different areas and plays a significant role in shaping urban life. To effectively integrate land use and transport in a way that supports sustainable mobility, we must consider the framework of the three D’s: Density, Diversity, and Design.
Urban density refers to the concentration of people, buildings, and activities within a given urban space. High-density environments support shorter travel distances, making sustainable transport modes like walking, cycling, and public transit more feasible. In a city like Chennai, many central neighbourhoods such as T. Nagar or George Town exhibit high population and built density, which in theory should support non-motorised mobility. However, the benefits of density are not fully used as they often lack pedestrian-friendly streetscapes or safe cycling infrastructure, limiting the usage of sustainable transport modes.
Equally important is diversity in land use, which involves integrating different urban functions such as residential, commercial, institutional, and recreational, within the same area. Most of the older neighbourhoods in Chennai, like Mylapore or Saidapet, showcase mixed land use, where homes, temples, markets, and schools coexist. This should ideally encourage residents to use non-motorised transport modes but there is no infrastructure to make it safe and pleasant to walk or cycle for daily errands. In many newer or peripheral localities like Sholinganallur or Nolambur, zoning remains largely unifunctional, requiring long-distance travel for essential services. The absence of accessible amenities in close proximity due to the lack of diversity in land use promotes the usage of motorised vehicles.
However, even when density and land-use diversity are present, their impact is reduced significantly without good urban design. Design directly affects how safe, practical, and attractive walking, cycling, and public transport feel. In Chennai, broken or non-existent footpaths, encroached sidewalks, poorly lit streets, and unsafe junctions are a common sight. For instance, areas around major transit hubs like Tambaram or Koyambedu see heavy footfall but lack adequate pedestrian infrastructure. Similarly, dedicated and continuous cycle lanes are rare to non-existent. Even in stretches where cycle lanes are marked on the road, they are not physically segregated from vehicle lanes and are often used by other transport modes. This poor design pushes even those living in dense and diverse neighbourhoods to prefer two-wheelers or cars, not out of luxury, but necessity.
Thus, in Chennai, the gap lies not in the lack of density or mixed land use alone, but in how urban design fails to harness their full potential. To make sustainable mobility a viable choice, the city needs a coordinated focus on safe, inclusive, and context-sensitive design. Only then can Chennai effectively convert its spatial advantages into healthier, low-carbon mobility outcomes.
Initiatives by Chennai city
Chennai has been attempting to bridge this gap by employing a combination of push and pull strategies aimed at discouraging car dependence while making sustainable mobility options more attractive and accessible. The push strategies are policies and measures that discourage the use of personal vehicles. Some notable examples include the pedestrianisation efforts at Pondy Bazaar and the Complete Streets initiative under the Chennai City Partnership.
The Pedestrian Plaza in Pondy Bazaar on Sir Thyagaraya Road reclaimed road space for people by removing motorised traffic from a key shopping street and introducing wide footpaths, seating areas, greenery, and public amenities. It transformed a congested, vehicle heavy zone into a vibrant public space. However, its impact remains geographically limited. Traffic diversion to adjacent roads created new congestion issues. Problems of encroachments due to vehicles parking on the footpath, and the project’s maintenance, particularly cleanliness and infrastructure upkeep, has been inconsistent. Moreover, similar pedestrianisation efforts have not been widely replicated across the city in other high footfall areas like George Town or North Chennai, which are densely populated neighbourhoods with narrow roads, poor infrastructure, and minimal footpath coverage, where they are arguably even more needed.
The Complete Streets initiative, previously called the Chennai Mega Street Project, announced in 2020, is another critical intervention that aims at transforming busy streets into pedestrian-friendly areas across six neighbourhoods in the city. It focuses on high-quality urban design with continuous footpaths wider than at least 1.8m, better lighting, safer crossings, stormwater drains, and street furniture, prioritising pedestrians and cyclists. While implementation of the project has begun, progress has been slow and the project has faced numerous delays due to administrative bottlenecks, contractor issues, and inter-departmental coordination challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic further stalled progress. Another key limitation is the fragmented nature of these projects, and redesigned streets often abruptly transition into poorly maintained or encroached stretches, disrupting the pedestrian experience. Hence, the real transformative potential of the initiative is yet to be seen and can only be assessed once the project is fully completed.
Another initiative is Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority’s (CUMTA) parking policy 2025, which is a much needed step to regulate parking supply and discourage indiscriminate car use, especially in congested areas. As the policy is new, its successful implementation is yet to be seen.
On the other hand, pull strategies are those that provide incentives for people to move away from personal cars to sustainable mobility. Some common pull strategies include installation of segregated bicycle lanes, wide footpaths for walking, promoting public transport, fiscal incentives for low-emission vehicles, etc. Chennai has been implementing pull strategies, by investing substantially in the development of footpaths, bus fleets and metro expansion.
The Greater Chennai Corporation’s ₹200 crore initiative to lay 200km of new footpaths is a promising move toward building a pedestrian-friendly city. But these initiatives should not be isolated to only certain stretches. Continued and connected footpaths across the city are essential to encourage pedestrian friendly infrastructure development.
In terms of public transport, Chennai’s bus system, operated by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC), remains the lifeline for millions of daily commuters. The network has an extensive reach, and fares are among the lowest in the country, making it affordable for a wide range of users. Recent moves toward modernisation include the addition of electric buses, and real-time tracking through apps like the Chennai bus app. Despite these developments, several systemic challenges persist. A significant portion of the bus fleet is old and poorly maintained, leading to breakdowns and uncomfortable rides. Bus services in peripheral areas and during off-peak hours are infrequent, pushing people toward private vehicles. Most bus stops lack basic amenities like shelters, seating, or route information, making them inaccessible and unfriendly, particularly for women, elderly people, and persons with disabilities. There is also poor integration between the bus network and other transit modes like the metro. Last-mile connectivity to bus stops remains a serious barrier, limiting seamless travel. Furthermore, the bus route network has not been rationalised in years, failing to adapt to new urban developments like the IT corridors or emerging residential clusters.
Together, these initiatives show that Chennai is moving in the right direction, but progress is fragmented and uneven. They need to be scaled up city-wide and not remain as isolated examples.
Way forward
Going forward, a well-orchestrated blend of push and pull strategies, grounded in spatial planning, can help Chennai truly transition into an inclusive, climate-resilient, and sustainable city. The potential exists but to realise it fully, the city must embed sustainable transport not as a set of isolated projects, but as a holistic vision for urban life.
The alignment of land use and transport planning should become a core mandate across agencies. Mixed-use zoning should be encouraged, particularly in rapidly urbanising areas, to ensure daily needs are accessible within short distances. Urban design guidelines must be strictly enforced to prioritise walkability, safety, and universal access. Additionally, robust public engagement, community feedback, and a focus on equity ensuring marginalised neighbourhoods are not left out are crucial for long-term success.
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