Uploaded on 2017-08-04 by Kartik

Mobility in Auroville Over many years the topic of road design and traffic planning has been of great interest to members of the Auroville community. At the time of its inception, beginning with the inauguration at the Matrimandir amphitheatre in 1968, the way to get around AV was 1) by walking, 2) by bicycle and 3) by bullock vandi. The road to Pondicherry was a long but doable walk, practically the only cars being ambassador taxis and the rare "antique" foreign models left to end their days as "wedding chariots". Public transport in the form of buses (also often very old) and cycle (plus some auto) rikshaws shared the roads with the cyclists, pedestrians and water buffalos... but then, rapid waves of change brought more people, motorbikes and scooters, and the opening of the floodgates of the private car market... Auroville mirrored these developments. The environmentally-conscious City of the Future (in the making) made way grudgingly to the advent of the petrol economy in India. And the debate about "mobility and planning" has been evolving ever since. Various interpretations of Auroville's Master Plan, as facilitated by Auroville's Future (and every other planning group to exist in parallel or consequently), have made proposals about how to combine elements of Mother's vision of a car-free, garden-like environment with the residents' immediate mobility needs (like getting construction materials to the new site, effectively managing an active unit or project, or ferrying the kids between school-sports-home). A sticking point in these deliberations has turned around "permanent solutions", and immediate needs - in areas of investment, materials, layout & design. And a major difficulty, apart from negotiating existing roads into the overlay of the future City plan, is the fact that major thoroughfares pass through land which does not, or perhaps will not soon, belong to Auroville.