Image: Unknown source
Kathmandu’s traffic behaves like its weather: predictable in its unpredictability. At any hour, in any season, thousands of motorcycles buzz through its narrow arteries, weaving, overtaking, idling, honking. The fallout is gridlock with a throttle. Speeds are down to a crawl. Smog hangs in the air like a curtain. Deaths mount. Yet the system works, after a fashion. No public service functions as reliably, or reaches as many, as the motorbike.
This makes Kathmandu a public-policy dilemma. It is one of Asia’s most two-wheeled cities with more than 3.8mn motorbikes registered, up from under 120,000 at the start of the century. Motorbikes account for three-quarters of all urban vehicles. Cars, though prohibitively expensive due to taxes and tariffs, are becoming an increasingly popular means of transport. Buses and micros, neglected and overcrowded, offer scant alternatives. So cities have turned to the motorbike as their default mode of movement.
The economics are persuasive. A Bajaj Pulsar or TVS Raider costs around NPR 300,000 ($2,200). Fuel expenses are bearable. Financing is ubiquitous, though rates can top 15%. Parking is free in theory but mostly illegal in practice. It is no coincidence motorbikes dominate urban space. Nor is it incidental they are Kathmandu’s most common cause of injury and death.
Congestion is one problem. Pollution is another. Motorbikes consume nearly 40% of the country’s petrol and emit a disproportionate share of particulate matter. Kathmandu frequently ranks amongst the world’s most polluted cities. Yet reform is elusive. Efforts to enforce traffic rules, lessen fuel subsidies or reimagine public transport collide with political inertia and social resistance. Few voters want pricier petrol or fewer parking spots. And many politicians have stakes in the dealerships that profit from the status quo.
Still, there may be an alternative. On January 5th New York City became the first American metropolis to introduce congestion pricing. The scheme, modelled after London’s, imposes a fee on vehicles entering Manhattan’s core. Early signs are promising: commute times through key tunnels have halved, emissions have declined and the city expects to raise more than $1bn a year for public transport. Could a similar model work in Kathmandu?
In principle, yes. Like New York, Kathmandu suffers from hyper-concentration of vehicles in its commercial and historical core. Demand for road space outstrips supply. Yet drivers face no marginal cost for adding to the chaos. By charging entry into specific zones, the city could price this externality, lower vehicle numbers and raise funds for public investment. Gridlock, in economic terms, is a rationing failure. Congestion pricing restores price signals.
In reality implementation would be daunting. Kathmandu lacks New York’s digital tolling infrastructure as well as institutional capacity and enforcement muscle. Camera systems are sparse. Police are overstretched. Elected officials may balk at alienating core constituencies. A successful scheme would need technical foundations and political consensus. Neither exists at present.
Even so, the idea deserves consideration. Congestion pricing does not have to cover the entire valley. A pilot zone around Asan, New Road or Putalisadak could serve as a test bed. Exemptions for electric vehicles and emergency services as well as the disabled could ease public resistance. Mobile-based payments and QR-scanned entry points would cut administrative burden. And the revenues could be earmarked for tangible, visible upgrades: more buses, cleaner streets, better footpaths.
Some will argue congestion charges are regressive. In theory, they are. But Kathmandu’s roads are not dominated by the poor. Many ride out of convenience not necessity. Moreover, the absence of pricing already extracts a toll: through lost hours, polluted lungs and increasing accident rates. It is a system that taxes time and air instead of money. That too is a form of inequality.
Electrification presents another path. Surplus hydropower creates an unusual opportunity: a clean, cheap energy source waiting for a transport transition. Electric two-wheelers are already entering the market, led by Chinese imports. But uptake remains limited. Charging points are scarce. Incentives are poorly structured. A congestion charge could accelerate adoption by creating a cost differential between polluting and clean vehicles. Pricing after all drives behaviour.
Peer cities are moving faster. Hanoi has restricted bikes in central areas. Jakarta is toying with low-emission zones. Delhi has launched licence-plate rationing. Colombo has banned two-wheelers from its commercial heart. Kathmandu meanwhile pours money into flyovers, which shift bottlenecks without solving them. Its default strategy is accommodation rather than transformation.
Yet transformation may arrive anyway. The city is changing demographically and economically, as well as technologically. Women now account for one-fifth of new two-wheeler purchases, up from a twentieth a decade ago. Youth demand safer streets and cleaner air. Tourists increasingly shun polluted urban cores. Digital ride-hailing firms want predictable routes and better enforcement. There is a constituency for reform, if one can be mobilised.
Congestion pricing, if nothing else, would send a message: that urban space has value, and that public planning can impose order on private chaos. It would not solve Kathmandu’s transport crisis. But it might signal the city is willing to try.
At present traffic flows by improvisation. Drivers edge past each other on faith and muscle memory. Policymakers do much the same. The result is not so much a transport system as a daily, citywide experiment in collective navigation.
That experiment has gone on long enough. It is time to charge for the privilege of participation. ■