Motor vehicles and road congestion
View(s):If there is one sector in Sri Lanka that keeps hogging media headlines in recent months, it is motor vehicles and the related traffic congestion. Increased or reduced taxes, rising demand for hybrids, new computation of valuing cars for duty purposes, policies encouraging more Sri Lankans to be car owners and contradictory policies are among some of the issues that have dominated the headlines in the past 12 to 18 months.
Some of the recent headlines are as follows: “New valuation to see rise in vehicle prices”, “At least 70 Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) blocked from clearing by Sri Lanka Customs”, “Sri Lankan vehicle price0 soar with the rupee depreciation”, “Hybrid tax hike drives Sri Lanka’s motor dealers round the bend” and “Individual hybrid car importers rally round, protest over exorbitant tax”.
The latest dispute between Government authorities and the motor vehicle industry is over a set of new guidelines for vehicle valuation which the industry says would increase car prices by over Rs. 700,000 per unit and adversely impact the market. In another policy, the Ministry of Finance about a month ago announced that leasing facilities for individuals would be restricted to 70 per cent of the value of a vehicle, down from 100 per cent, to limit the number of vehicle imports which had soared.
Rather than stay with this decision, about a week ago, the Ministry said the leasing facility has been increased to 90 per cent in a reversal of the earlier ruling. Now why did this happen when the reduction in the facility earlier was aimed at limiting imports? Were any ‘big car mudalalis’ behind the move to regain the almost full leasing facility? These are questions that will remain unanswered for many months and continue to beguile the public.
Police personnel work with blinkers on, most motorists will agree. For example, traffic police focus on the main junctions and based on the buildup during peak hours direct the flows while suspending the traffic lights at that point.
The problem is that these authorities pay little attention to the byroads (that join a main road) where bumper-to-bumper vehicles spend endless minutes while attention is focused only at junctions. This week, the police announced a new traffic scheme near the Welikade-Sri Jayawardenepura junction which is unlikely to ease the flow as byroads leading to this junction also need to be guided.
Today’s commentary is not only about these disputes between tax authorities (Ministry of Finance) and importers but the ad hoc taxes that have happened over the years with no long-term planning and the stresses such short-term policies have caused on local roads, leading to traffic jams and congestion. Such congestion then propels the police to come up with ad hoc changes in road flows, diverting traffic here-and-there at irregular intervals in the hope the congestion during busy hours would be cleared.
All these roads (policies) and routes (taxes) have led to ad hoc policy making and further traffic chaos and snarls. For years, this newspaper – promoting the views of economists, traffic planners and transportation experts – has been lobbying for a proper transportation policy that would cover a gamut of issues (connecting the dots) like road network, new expressways, vehicle taxes, extra lanes for traffic, proper pavements for pedestrians and an effective traffic lights system.
The University of Moratuwa Department of Transport & Logistics Management’s has the best brains in this sector but such expertise has been underutilized by the authorities over the years. This department has done several studies, some of which have been shared with the media and the authorities, but often not implemented. What Sri Lanka needs is a system where road and vehicle tax policies along with new expressways, new roads and bridges are intertwined and connected to short term, medium term and long terms needs of society.
For example if a new Colombo-Kandy expressway is to come on stream in the next five years, will it ease traffic congestion, reduce driver stress (impact on health budget, etc), improve traffic flows or become just another carriageway with limited impact on other roads? Good examples are the two expressways – Pannipitiya to southern Sri Lanka and Peliyagoda to Katunayake. Getting to these highways from the city is still a nightmare particularly during peak hours. After just 20 minutes drive from the airport, from the Peliyagoda exit (a huge bottleneck) to the main Colombo business district could take anything between 30 minutes to an hour for just 5-6 km.
The same applies in getting to Pannipitya from Colombo and back. In a ‘cart before horse’ approach, the authorities are now planning to build a bridge across the Kelani river near Peliyagoda to ease congestion at Peliyagoda, an access that should have been in place at the same time the expressway was complete (this is no fault however of the present administration).
Business Times editorials have highlighted the need for a proper policy over and over again. In one such (post-budget) editorial on November 16, 2014, this was stated: “One doesn’t need rocket science to surmise that traffic congestion in the morning, mid-day and evenings on key roads – Sri Jayawardenapura, Reid Avenue-Havelock Town, Duplication Road (absolute chaos), Galle Road, Nawala Road, High Level Peliyagoda, Nugegoda-Kohuwela, etc – needs immediate solutions. And again these don’t come from importing more and more vehicles. Rather the need is wider spaces, wider roads, more parking bays, independent traffic police (now cowing down to politicians and their convoys and powerful individuals), less private vehicles and last but not least, improving public rail and road transport.
Traffic congestion at present is partly also because of haphazard and disorganized road construction. A Business Times story today relates a conversation between officials and ministers on the dilemma of road construction. It says: ‘Pavements cannot be built till the roads are carpeted, roads cannot be carpeted till they are properly built, roads cannot be built till the pipelines are made, pipelines cannot be made till the cables are pulled out, the boundary to pull the cables cannot be obtained till the pavements are built.’
At a recent panel discussion on transport logistics, it was concluded that the government needs to implement strict policies for the next five years in order to reduce traffic congestion.” (Unquote-Business Times Nov. 16, 2014)
Last year the authorities changed the tax structure for vehicle imports three to four times while this year there has been about two revisions and other policy changes. The problem is that such changes are ad hoc and based on tackling an immediate crisis (changes in leasing facilities for example) and when that crisis is over, another change is made.
The government is appointing all kinds of committees with the latest being a Select Committee to examine the affairs of the Central Bank. While this is laudable, the issues highlighted in today’s commentary also need similar focused parliamentary attention. This sector needs more attention than the current see-a-crisis-find-a-solution kind of intervention.