Station Area Planning for Mass Transit in India: Discussions for the Indian Context

With the number of metro rail systems in Indian cities growing, there is an intensifying focus on boosting ridership and improving land utilization around mass transit. The National Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Policy has given this concern its legitimacy by offering guidelines to cities and states. Among other things, a decisive factor influencing such planning efforts is the delineation of station areas. Many of the concepts and practices of Station Area Planning (SAP) rely on thumb rules and 'best practices' that are often replicated from studies and projects carried out in widely differing contexts. Our study seeks to initiate a debate on the downside of such an approach in planning practice and policymaking. Using secondary datasets, a case comparison has been developed across select Indian cities with metro rail facilities. We argue that SAPs are a highly context-sensitive strategy, which demand a thorough examination. By discounting the importance of a wide range of contextual factors, templatizing influence areas can have perverse results. There is, hence, a dire need to understand the nuances of area delineation more thoroughly before embarking on empirical investigations of policy interlinkages. It is our belief that by serving to initiate debate on these lines, it is possible to achieve multiple objectives that cities are constantly striving for.