One-way corridors

Speaking at the conclave, Baijal said that the growth of vehicles in the capital was such in the last couple of decades that the there is now a private vehicle for every three people. “As a result, management of traffic in the city has become a humongous challenge,” he said.

Delhi has more than a 10 million registered vehicles, out of which nearly 6.8 million are two wheelers. The Centre had come up with a detailed decongestion plan for Delhi in 2016. But the plan remains in abeyance as the Delhi government is yet to appoint a high-level monitoring committee to finalise and implement various decongestion measures.

According to government data, the number of cars registered in the city as of May 2017 was 3.1 million — the highest in the country — with a density of 93 cars per km of road.

Experts welcomed the decongestion steps and said the it was important to promote public transport. “We need to invest more in public transport which is a shared mode of commute. People who are now using cabs on shared basis should be made to feel safe while using public transport,” said Iit-delhi professor Geetam Tiwari. “This way people will move to mass transport and traffic can be reduced.”