Delhi's Free Bus Rides for Women: Global Lessons

Carl Schlyter (00:00:02)

Welcome to SystemShift, a podcast from Greenpeace which explores how we can move from a world that serves the economy, to an economy that works for people and the planet.

The theme of this series is change, can it happen in our lifetime. And each episode we speak to guests across the world to hear how they are changing the planet for the better.

I'm Carl Schlyter.

Yewande Omotoso (00:00:24)

And I'm Yewande Omotoso.

You might be listening to this episode on your way to work or coming back home - if you live in the metro area of a city like Lagos, Manila, Jakarta, Bogota, Bucharest or Bengaluru, you are probably spending a significant part of your day stuck in traffic.

Carl Schlyter (00:00:46)

And for this episode we're asking the question:

"Buses are free for women in Delhi: what can the world learn from that?".

Yewande Omotoso (00:01:10)

We'll be exploring how better public transport could reshape cities by reducing traffic for instance, cutting pollution, improving access to jobs, to culture, education, essential services and making them safer for all especially for marginalised communities. We'll look at Delhi's public transport system in particular and how it's been transformed by prioritising women.

Carl Schlyter (00:01:37)

And on our Instagram page we asked you the following question:

"What would make people more likely to use public transportation?"

And what do you think would be the most common answers here Yewande.

Yewande Omotoso (00:01:49)

What would make most people more likely to use public transport?

Cost comes to mind, maybe, cost and safety are the two that I think. What were the results?

Carl Schlyter (00:01:58)

Well, those are certainly among the two that people also proposed, but one thing that's really important for people and actually the most common answer of all was more routes, like more accessibility and more interconnectivity, so you can get from point A to B in an easier way. And then, as you mentioned, lower fares comes really high, just behind that point. And then safety and better vehicles, I assume higher quality and more clean and whatever that could be, or less environmentally polluting.

But those two are two of the four top picks, and so first more routes, lower fares, better vehicles and then more safety. So you're right among your fellow citizens in your opinions here.

Yewande Omotoso (00:02:41)

Fascinating. I know that another question we asked on the Instagram page is:

"If you had to describe public transport in your city with one word, what would it be? And here's what some of you had to say:

"Unreliable",

"Comfortable",

"Inaccessible",

"Insufficient".

Carl Schlyter (00:03:02)

What would you say to the same question?

Yewande Omotoso (00:03:04)

If I had to describe public transport in my city with one word what would it be: divisive, unfortunately – divisive, expensive, unsafe, hard to use.

Carl Schlyter (00:03:15)

In this episode we're joined by Nishant. He's a researcher associated with the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre in Delhi, and he's part of the group of people who developed the "Riding the Justice Route" report for Greenpeace India. And it's an interesting report about the experiences from introducing so-called "pink passes" in Delhi, which meant that women, all women could travel for free on the buses in the city's transport. So I think it has really interesting conclusions and we're going to talk more about those with him.

Yewande Omotoso (00:03:46)

Hello Nishant, really good to connect with you. Welcome to the podcast and thanks for joining us today.

One of the first questions actually is just an icebreaker. Would you be willing to teach Carl and I a short sentence, or a proverb or a word in your preferred language.

Nishant Singh (00:04:07)

I think one of the things that movement groups in India, that they often use to greet each other, is through the word zindabad. Zinda, in Hindi Urdu Hindustani language is "alive", someone who's alive. So you actually greet each other to just confirm through each other's communication that we are alive, and that's called zindabad. So zindabad, zindabad comrade, zindabad friends, I think that's a very nice word to exchange with each other.

Carl Schlyter (00:04:37)

Indeed, and you predicted thousands of years ago the oncoming of AI.

Yewande Omotoso (00:04:41)

Zindabad. Zindabad Nishant, zindabad Carl.

Carl Schlyter (00:04:45)

One interesting thing that you have been researching and doing in practice is "pink passes". Would you like to explain what that is to our listeners?

Nishant Singh (00:04:54)

So back in 2019, Delhi government – Delhi is the capital of India, governance-wise Delhi is a union territory. So transportation fortunately is a State subject and in Delhi's case it lies with the Delhi government. So the Delhi government started this scheme in 2019 where they announced that buses will be free to travel for women, only for women, no other classes or social categories of the population were given this kind of welfare benefit till that time in India ever. With the pink tickets, the differentiation or the colour of the ticket is pink, and that is basically to compensate the operator for the ticket that they are giving to women travellers. So that's the very basic idea and then afterwards, wherever new elections have been held it has been part of the election manifesto, and even the regional parties have announced that they will make public buses free for women if they come into power. So I think this has become quite a major political feature in Indian politics now.

Yewande Omotoso (00:06:07)

Nishant, you've actually written a report about this initiative, so I'm curious to understand from you the role of this kind of initiative and why it's important, the role gender plays in public transport, I think also the role class divisions play in this idea of public transport, and in your report. Could you talk a bit about that report "Riding the Justice Route" and what you have uncovered?

Nishant Singh (00:06:36)

So this report we did over a year almost, tracing different types of benefits and impacts that this scheme might have on women, not just who are using buses more regularly, but also on women – some who started using buses sometimes, whether it has become an option for women. So one major thing that we wanted to understand was, whether the public transport and bus particularly has become an option for women, if it was not before. And second, I think is a very important part of this scheme, how it has actually entered into the policy in that period, and not many people had thought about such a scheme, as an intervention. For example I'm referring to the labour force participation, women participating as a workforce in India remains low, the rate of participation remains low, particularly as you go a little bit higher in the income classes.

Carl Schlyter (00:07:31)

Yeah, I read the surprising statistics, that 53% of women hadn't left the house the day before, when asked "Did you leave the house yesterday?" and 53% answered "No I didn't". That's a really high number compared to Europe and US for example.

Nishant Singh (00:07:46)

Travel itself does not hold a value for people in India as much as people in other cultures probably does. People do not want to go out, or do not want to say that it is worthy to go out, unless there is a specific purpose which is very important such as work, or school. Just travelling for leisure, just going out, especially for women, is considered extremely unnecessary, potentially harmful for themselves, and potentially ruining the culture, public culture in that sense. That's a very interesting study, I think the same study looks at the age-wise distribution of how women go out, and if you look at that of course the younger women have to be protected from the public spaces because it's not safe for them, married women cannot go out because they're married. So there's a very small window where women actually can feel entitled to go out in this kind of culture, where mobility for women is extremely limited.

This was an area where not much thought had gone into making public transportation free to intervene to change this. I think in Delhi, government studies and some other independent studies by other researchers, also are showing that this is a major area where there has been a major impact, that women are now feeling free, more relaxed to go out, even if it is not just for work. So it does not matter because it does not cost, so they do not have to take permission, they do not have to explain to go anywhere. That's a major impact. 25% of women never used the bus who now, at least sometimes, use the bus. So it's a major improvement just after the scheme, you got one in four women who are new to bus who would not have travelled by bus, or use the public transport. The bus fares are very low in Delhi already 0.05 dollars, 0.1 dollar, for a long journey of 7, 8,10 kilometres, so I think the buses are, by some standards, already affordable. But given the economic context we have in Delhi or in India, even that public transport is not affordable for a lot of people and considering there are cultural issues of purpose for which you are travelling this becomes extremely out of the question.

Yewande Omotoso (00:10:08)

You touched on the issue of safety, and I'm just curious.

So this is an account from 24 year old Kajal who is based in Faridabad, a neighbourhood in Delhi. She says:

"Every weekend I travel to Delhi for my theatre classes and practice sessions. I rely on public buses because they are the most affordable option for me. However these bus trips have never been easy. The most pressing issue I encounter is the overcrowding of buses. It not only makes my travel uncomfortable but also unsafe. I've been subjected to unwarranted flirtation and even molestation during these journeys which is both distressing and alarming. What's even more frustrating is the lack of accessibility on public buses for people with disabilities. We need a more inclusive and accommodating public transportation system in Delhi, where everyone. regardless of their gender or disability, can travel without fear or difficulty.".

One of the things we'd love you to talk a bit about is why it matters, why having this kind of robust public system and having all citizens able to use it freely, and because there's inequality in the society the focus on women, creates a bit more of a level playing field for them to use it more than they have in the past.

Nishant Singh (00:11:42)

I can't deny that we were also surprised when the scheme was announced. And even for the government, I think they did not foresee exactly what it would impact, considering that Delhi has Delhi Metro which has a little bit different history as compared to buses in Delhi. Buses were used by the masses, working class, always, conditions have improved in the last one decade, not so much the reliability and the punctuality of buses but still with more number of buses being added it has slightly improved even. But even without that, even before that, I think a lot of people were just dependent on it, even with the very poor quality of service. The public transport in Delhi has largely meant that it is bus. While Delhi Metro is not new, it has been here since 2002, but it only caters to the needs of a fraction of the kind of demand for public transport Delhi has. And the major reason, it is not that people do not want to use it, there are structural reasons also, that being a Metro the stations are far apart so it's not a last mile connectivity which is a major issue with a Metro system. So it cannot be a standalone public transport system for a city like Delhi where most of the travel is happening for 1, 1 and a half kilometres, especially for women for example. All the data that we have, or from the Census, suggest that almost 50% of the trips that women make are neighbourhood trips which you can say are 1 or 2 kilometres long. So women frequently do not go a very long distance and even men.

Carl Schlyter (00:13:19)

This is interesting also, because when we have a global survey of what people think is important issues relating to public transport, affordability comes high and also availability and if the bus stop is close to your house and so on, so those are two main things. But what I found interesting here in your argument is that the free part means that women don't need to justify why they need to go somewhere as they would have, even for a few rupees, that would still have to be justified for many women, especially low income I assume. So when this is taken away have you seen a change in behaviour here, like the purpose of those trips maybe, people who thought, "oh, I'm more free to visit a health clinic" or "I can do things that I don't need to justify in the same way". Has their accessibility to health or other services improved, have you seen any such effects?

Nishant Singh (00:14:18)

Yeah, so our report shows that cost is a major sensitive issue in the economic context of Delhi, and we show that 86% of women believe that walking very long distances is no more necessary, or it has helped avoid that kind of long distance to walk. It's two things, one that buses have helped, free buses means that you can spend little bit more time waiting for buses rather than walking that distance, you can wait, the bus will come The other thing that it also suggests is that a lot of women are very sensitive to cost, that they used to walk – which we have other sources also to tell us – but this also shows that for a lot of women distances matter depending on how much it costs. So I think one is definitely that, so purpose wise also. If you only can walk, the things that you can do is very limited, if your relatives live nearby you can go to them, if your friends live nearby, I mean apart from the work and other things which many women do not do outside of their homes.

I should add that a lot of times the kind of occupation and the economic contribution women make, not just the non-paid care work, but also the home based industries exist, and their contribution, which is actually economic, does not pay them. So I think in terms of making the buses free, we show that women think that they can travel longer distances, not just for work, for all kinds of other purposes. And the numbers are striking, three in four women, almost 70 – 80% of women are doing that, if they want to use buses, if there is a direct route let's say. And, which is a good thing that in Delhi, tourism wise, public transport has good connectivity. That if you want to go to some of these places, your residential area may not be very well connected to that, but that place definitely has good purpose connectivity, you can use it to go there. So that has happened with a lot of University students – just after college they can say, "let's take a different (route), let's take a detour and go to that place and then go home". So that they can now do that, it doesn't cost them anything extra.

Carl Schlyter (00:16:35)

I think it's interesting, Paris is now really trying to create a 15 minute city, where most of the services, where most people, wouldn't need to travel for more than 15 minutes, and that's a struggle because it wasn't planned like that. But is this deliberately planned as such, or did it just happen as such when Delhi developed?

Nishant Singh (00:16:53)

Delhi already has many cities because over the years, thousands of years, it has been built and rebuilt, destroyed in some ways, but it's not really destroyed but just reconfigured by people in different ways, and what we call Old Delhi right now in our current lingo. But it was mainly meant for people who used to walk, and it remains so, you cannot change that, you have to basically destroy it completely and then make something new, it cannot be changed to anything else. And that helps Delhi remain a lot more sustainable, it makes it a lot more possible to promote these kinds of things, because people are already reliant on walking, cycling, buses which cater to these kinds of spaces, you can walk a little bit to reach those bus stops and get a bus.

Yewande Omotoso (00:17:48)

In listening to you it's clear that transportation and this idea of mobility, despite as you say not always being at the top of the list when politicians are campaigning, is like all the issues, it connects around gender, around economy, around health, air quality, environmental issues, so there's something really central about it. I guess I'm really curious to hear from you, considering this is a passion of yours, what would you like to see? Okay that happened, and you're part of all these movements, what is it you would like to see in transport, yes in Delhi as an example, but even one that can be rolled out in many cities?

Nishant Singh (00:18:29)

Yes, I think since Delhi has already made the buses free, one thing that we have been demanding through a joint campaign with Greenpeace, we have been demanding now, that there are other things that you also have to do, for example bring more buses as soon as possible which, I must add, not to look extremely cynical anti-government person, that this government is really working on. And some of the other cities, for example Chennai has a much bigger problem to face, in India, Mumbai has a decreasing fleet without any addition, privatisation is a possibility of public transport undertaking that exists. So other cities also have their own issues which are going on.

Yewande Omotoso (00:19:16)

We've got a clip here from Geetha in Bangalore, and I'll read a translation.

Geetha

The bus lane is important for us, and we need more buses. The frequency of buses is 1 or 2 every 30 minutes, and it's difficult for us to reach our workplace. If we are late by 30 minutes to an hour, the salary gets deducted. This is the reason why we are asking for bus lanes and extra buses.

We need extra buses and a separate bus lane which will benefit us. This will help a lot of commuters like college students, garment workers, and other citizens.

Nishant Singh (00:20:01)

Then we talk about, in cities in India, there is no public transport, practically; the buses are run by private operators and there is no systematic maintenance of public transport, bus stops, shelters.

Another thing I was going to add was about making it free for all. Now considering the gender justice angle for mobility that this scheme has, this becomes a little bit reactionary, to say free for all, but I think this was the original progressive agenda in that sense, that public transport does not have to have that exclusionary nature. Second thing, once it is made free for everyone and I'm trying to include more expensive forms of public transport, for example Delhi Metro, if that is made free or at least for the concession, because currently Delhi Metro prides itself to not give concessions of any kind, nobody can travel without paying the full price that there is.

Yewande Omotoso (00:21:05)

And it's a source of pride, I find that interesting, that's a source of pride.

But when you talk now about Metro and this idea of there are no concessions, I feel like what you're pointing to is the other thing that I really think is relevant when we talk about transport, which is which is class, social class, and the fact that there's a perception that if you're using public transport that it's about commonality, it's about the populace, it's not special it's not elevated. So I think it's fascinating that the Metro understood that, and so they're saying "this is elevated, there's no free here". I just think that's another conversation to have, because there's a truth to that, which is that it doesn't matter how good the transport is people think, "actually I need a car, because I've arrived and I have a great job, and what it means to arrive and have a great job is to get a car, not to walk to the bus stop". And until we can shift perception somehow and understand, which is of course a long task, but I just think that's such an interesting thing that you're touching on there.

Nishant Singh (00:22:12)

Exactly, and I think mobility has a role, because public transport as a form of mobility has a role in bridging, in making the class associations. The bus is not just "you go from here to there" because that you can do with bicycle or car or these kinds of modes, where you do not have to interact with the other person, you do not have to touch the other person, and that's a major difference in terms of experience, in terms of social interaction. You cannot do a bus journey without speaking to anyone, so you have to make space for yourself, you have to give space to other people. Initially what Delhi Metro brought to Delhi, people wanted to just have that experience. Why? Because this showed that's what elite mobility would look like, does look like. And when they travelled they felt very disciplined, there was a difference to how you would conduct yourself within the Metro, as soon as you enter the Metro compound as compared to just outside of it, where you will see street vendors and people just enjoying themselves and having all kinds of casual gestures and everything. But the moment you enter there's CCTV, there's a security guard, there's an industrial guard and so on and so forth, there's a scanning going on. I don't think many people have been fined, or have been even close to getting fined in the Metro, but it's just there, you will not, you don't dare to do anything. And so you don't interact.

Yewande Omotoso (00:23:39)

It's fascinating. But also, a quote has been shared with me which is an interesting quote, where it says "A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars, it's where the rich use public transport.". It's a quote from the former mayor of Bogota, but it's just interesting, the role again of class. And then I love what you just said Nishant because we also had a podcast where we were looking at the urban spaces and loneliness, and this conversation you're having now where you're saying well one of the roles of this public transport is you're thrown into the drama of public city life, you connect, it's not always nice, but you're you're forced to interact with others, versus being in your little capsule. So when I have ever interacted – I love public transport I should just confess – and whenever I use it wherever in the world, it's fascinating for me, it's just amazing to just observe people, people watching is, if that doesn't sound too creepy is another favourite pastime, and you get to do that on public transport.

Carl Schlyter (00:24:42)

Yes, talking about creepy though, from the Delhi study 4% of the women felt insulted when using public transport, and among lower class or lower income women it's 40%, so it's a lot higher risk to be discriminated against if you're a minority.

Yewande Omotoso (00:25:03)

On that point, Shuta, who also lives in Delhi had this to say.

"It is a common thing for men to sexually harass women in the bus on the pretext of crowds. Often these incidents of sexual harassment are brushed aside. Travelling by bus in the morning and evening is like fighting a war. While boarding the bus you have to protect your mobile, purse, as well as your body. This has happened to me many times when someone tried to hold me back or press my chest. However, now I'm learning to deal with this problem."

Carl Schlyter (00:25:39)

What do you see, you could do in India but also generally to promote safety and a feeling of welcomeness, to make people behave, to make the bad people behave also outside of the Metro but also in the buses, what can you do to achieve this objective?

Nishant Singh (00:25:56)

I think that's a very good point and we come back to that when we talk about challenges in using public buses. And as Yewande was saying that the safety for women is a very important thing, even if it is made free, now what, and then women still feel not so safe. And considering, I should add, in 2012, Delhi had a big episode, people actually coming out in resistance for gender justice, especially against sexual offenses – I mean the laws are very weak at that time – against the perpetrators of sexual violence. And that happened because of the assault, in a private bus, of the rape of a young woman in Delhi. And so I think it did shock, and then the safety and the mobility and this whole issue of women not really belonging to public transport as a space, did feature very prominently and a lot of changes have happened since then, it's still not safe yet.

I have to add one thing still, that public buses are still a little bit safer as compared to a general public space. If there is an incident, there is a possibility that if you make noise, if you point that out, it is quite likely that people will support and single out that person. The second thing is going to the other (issue), since India is a caste (society) it has remained a very caste-ist society, the whole issue of not touching another person or, not talking to, being friends with or hating the other person who does not belong to my own standards of caste, or these days religion, is a thing that comes into the experience of travelling in public transport also. But you have to recognise that public transport is a space, that could potentially be a space where we could act on these things, bringing a lot more harmony and dialogue to overcome these kinds of divides, and these things.

Carl Schlyter (00:28:00)

You mentioned that a solution could be to make public transport free for all. I think one interesting experience from South Korea where they let elderly people have free public transport, was that you could actually see positive societal effects, such as less depression less loneliness, and it was actually beneficial for society because you reduced costs from suicide, depression and loneliness. I wonder if you would go free for all, what kind of collateral positive effects could you see if you would do such a reform, in your mind?

Nishant Singh (00:28:36)

I think one is that democracy will be strengthened, that's a thing that is usually not part of mobility discussions. There will be value changes in the society, once we start strengthening our democracy, maybe we'll have better public transport and once we have better public transport we'll probably acknowledge democratic values more, that's one. I think the other thing is the kind of possibilities to see the city in a different way. If you walk in the city, around the neighbourhood, you tend to see the city in a different way. When you travel in a car you do not see the city actually. And when you use a bus I think you see things in a different way. So I think one is definitely I think about belonging and the other is about the change in the values, which I would like to say, that it goes more towards democratic values.

Carl Schlyter (00:29:47)

That was a really nice answer, thank you so much, and I totally agree. And so I think if you have this vision of a public transport and no need for long transport, and equal rights and safe public transport, I think there you're coming close to a really truly democratic and positive vision for how a city can develop, rather than a congestion hell of cars. So I wish you good luck with that.

Nishant Singh (00:30:00)

Thank you, and let's hope that other cities also take up these initiatives.

Yewande Omotoso (00:30:06)

Thank you so much Nishant, thank you.

So I live in Johannesburg, it's not dissimilar, issues of gender and class. Most people, as soon as they can, get a car. It's not cheap to do one but most people do. Why? Because the public transport is irregular, it services certain areas, but I think South Africa is also interesting because the history of transport is, like many things, deeply embedded in the history of the country and the history of Apartheid. Public transport was how black people, black South Africans were bussed, from township areas where they'd been placed by the government into the city, or into the suburbs to serve a white minority, and then bussed back. So the issue of routes is fascinating, because there's just this one route, because it's purely utilitarian. It's not about access, it's not about the citizen, it's about the service, the labour. And so I actually like that the idea of more routes came so high, because I want opportunities.

Now what happened in South Africa is we have an - what was informal but isn't anymore more, but we sometimes still refer to it as that which - is an informal, it's the minibus taxi so it's the slightly smaller bus and we call it a minibus taxi, and that's the local parlance, very expensive, but that system came up in those days because the big buses were not interested in "I want to go see a movie or I want to visit a friend", so the minibus taxi came up because it was informal, it could go different routes and it could get you to other places that you needed to get to, as a whole being, not just as a source of labour. So I mean it's fascinating, I just feel it's so great chatting to Nishant, but it just feels as if transportation and this idea of mobility is so, it seems like this kind of nerdy weird thing, but it's so kind of crucial I think to the idea of the city, the beautiful idea of the city - not the ways in which cities haven't worked - but when cities work, they work because you have access and you can do all these things and you're exposed and these things are available, you don't have to own, you can have access, and it should be this egalitarian organism, the city. And then unfortunately, for all the reasons we know, of course it's not.

Carl Schlyter (00:32:34)

I live 18 km from my job in the city center and I normally bicycle, but sometimes the weather is bad, I just don't feel like bicycling that far. There is a boat service, I can take the bicycle, you can bring the bicycle on the boat and you can take the boat, and it's a beautiful view, you have Wi-Fi connection, you can sit outside if the weather permits and people are so much more relaxed on the boat than on the buses and the metro. Most will just take the metro or the buses, actually 74% of the people will use that to get to their job during rush hours, so car is the exception because we have congestion charges here, so it's kind of expensive to take the car, and 75% of those people who pay for it, of course men and middle income or higher, so they are still stuck to their car mentality.

Yewande Omotoso (00:33:22)

If I can jump in there then, because that is a piece of whatever policy or legislation that has been put in place, so that the use of the car becomes inconvenient, and that's very common. But I guess the question to you, and I think it's an interesting conversation we can have, because you know I live on this side of the world and you live on that side of the world.

Carl Schlyter (00:33:44)

South and North, really truly!

Yewande Omotoso (00:33:45)

Well South and North, and I mean a lot of what I think this podcast is also about when we system shift, there's a system that works over there, and an effective transport system is the evidence of that. And there's something that's missed here. Of course there are attempts and there's the infrastructure that has to be built and so on, but I think Nishant's point that the politicians initially were not campaigning on issues of mobility and then eventually he actually acknowledged that they started to do so, it's a win that has started and he definitely obviously understands that we need to ride that, excuse the pun, we need to take that and push and really advocate even deeper for more. And I guess, one of the things I wonder is, what are the missing pieces to be able to implement that system, so that we have a city that is available. Something like the pink passes is something to celebrate and it's a victory, we need to amplify that 2,000, and then we need more of those stories to realise that it is possible and that it can be done.

Carl Schlyter (00:34:56)

And I think also, your history there that, going from the township and having a one-way ticket to colonialism and back again every day, I think that also we need to change the purpose of the trips and the city planning, so that we become a little bit more similar to Delhi, where you don't have one city centre or one power centre where you need to go but actually divide that.

Yewande Omotoso (00:35:22)

I guess I'm just curious about the barriers, because I think that's how we get the system to shift if we pay attention to what are the things in the way of fulfilling that vision. But I think what I really was excited the most about one of the things he said, a lot of what he said I think was really interesting, I think it's a happy – I don't want to say coincidence – but it's a happy connection, this idea of the political space, and the movement space, like there's this almost by accident moment where suddenly there's the pink passes, I mean not suddenly but, we're going to do that, and it seems to come out of nowhere because normally there's not been campaigning around that, and I guess this moment of happenstance and then how to take advantage of that. Because I do think for systemic shift we need to work in spaces of power where the decision makers are, where the money is and where the political will is. So I was excited that there's something to jump on and take advantage of, and I started thinking again how to stretch that beyond Delhi, beyond India, thinking of my own city and ways in which engaging with political will could make a real difference with this issue.

Carl Schlyter (00:36:43)

I saw a video where they interviewed women who have been benefiting from this in another Indian city in Karnataka. There are so many perspectives here that you can't really foresee, because so many people live so many different lives, but there are positive aspects that you as a listener could imagine, if this would happen in your city what could you see. And I hope this episode has helped people to see some of the potential benefits of making transport more accessible and safe and free. It's actually a win for society and the climate so I think, really that could help us. I think it's also interesting that in a city like Pontevedra in Spain, where you have a car-free city and you could see how air quality was improved, how stress levels and noise pollution was much better. Every time you say you want a car-free city people think always, "that's not possible, that's never going to work, and the business is going to collapse", and every single time when you have a car-free street or whatever, you see that the experience is positive. So I wish local politicians would dare to do that a lot more.

Yewande Omotoso (00:37:57)

We're really committed that at the end of every episode, listeners can leave, you can leave the episode with some tangible things that you can actually do and take away with you. For instance, if you live in India, something you could do is take the two-minute survey and share your thoughts on public buses. Greenpeace India is on a mission to make public transport smooth, safe and free, especially for women and transgender individuals.

Carl Schlyter (00:38:23)

And you can read the Greenpeace Mobility Vision as well, that's actually full of really interesting facts on how much we could benefit from changing the way we move in our cities and in rural areas. It's a good report with a lot of facts and statistics that shows how we can improve situations in cities and in rural areas if we change the way we think regarding mobility.

Yewande Omotoso (00:38:47)

Another thing that you could do, is if you live in an area with proposed changes to transport like a new bicycle lane or a bus stop, be very vocal, be very noisy about your support for that, very often these changes, even small ones, get knocked down by opposition.

Carl Schlyter (00:39:05)

And also support your local transport workers, they're doing your community such a huge favour, and giving them better working conditions and taking care when you yourself are in a car or moving around them, make their working space safe, contribute to that and we can all enjoy better infrastructure.

Yewande Omotoso (00:39:25)

We will put links to all the things we've mentioned, the survey for instance and the Greenpeace Mobility Vision, we'll put links to all of this in the show notes.

Joycelyn London (00:39:36)

Thank you for listening to this episode of SystemShift. In our next episode we're asking the question:

"How can I think of the planet when I can't even afford rent?".

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