Brown-Bag Seminar
March 30, 2007
1:30 PM – 3:00 PM
World Resources Institute
On March 30, Monica Bansal, a graduate student at Colombia University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation presented her research on Delhi’s auto-rickshaws. These three-wheeled vehicles carry thousands of city residents each day, providing an alternative to private car trips and an important source of jobs in the region.
Unfortunately, auto-rickshaws are also major polluters. In Kolkata, for example, auto-rickshaws comprise 5% of the fleet, but an estimated 35% percent of vehicle-related pollution.
In her talk, Bansal discussed how the Dehli government has moved to address this issue by requiring many auto rickshaw owners to replace their old three-wheelers with new models that run on cleaner-burning Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).
Monica Bansal is a graduate student at Columbia University and will graduate in May 2007 with a Master of Science in Urban Planning, with a particular focus on air quality, transportation and alternative energy applications in urban centers. She comes from an environmental science and policy background, which she studied as an undergraduate at the University of Virginia. This has also continued as a passion within her professional life, as seen in her stint as a LEED building consultant in Maryland.