In a survey conducted amongst the residents of the city, 68 per cent of the people put congestion as the biggest problem of the city. With more and more jobs being generated, residents and authorities are extremely worried about how the city will cater to the increased demand on its already over stressed streets and transport system.An environment survey trying to find out the loss in productivity due to traffic congestion put the damages at an estimated $2 billion per year.Sounds familiar? Sure, except the city in question here is not Pune but New York. And these are just some of the many traffic problems the city is trying to grapple with as shown in Contested Streets, a one-hour film produced by a body called Transportation Alternatives in New York.While environmentalist Sujit Patwardhan managed to get this film from the US, a few others like Critical Chaos and U Turn, both produced by the BBC and Interface for Cycling Expertise that talks about the immense success of cities that have turned cyclist and pedestrian friendly, have been clubbed together in a bid to find a sustainable solution to Pune's traffic woes.Open Forum is screening these films at an innovative film festival dedicated to traffic problems and solutions that began here on Thursday. In the meantime, Lokayat, along with Tekdi and Pune Transport and Traffic Forum that held a screening of U Turn some days ago, has come up with a Save Pune Forum that is going to focus on the improvement of the public transport system as the only way out of traffic woes."We are also going to book a table space at the Pune Book Fair starting in the first week of November where we will give out CDs on transport solutions," says Neeraj Jain of Lokayat.According to Patwardhan, the films hold significance because they show various cities like Paris, London and New York growing through the same pangs of growth as Pune.At the same time, the films focus on cities like Copenhagen, Bogota and Amsterdam where solutions have been found in the form of bicycle lanes, pedestrian streets and increased parking fees. In Copenhagen for instance, Contested Streets shows how one-third of the populace goes to work on bicycles, one-third by public transport with only the remaining one-third using cars making it the least congested city in the world."The films also show that the solution does not lie in making more highways or flyovers. The only way out is to restrict the number of vehicles on the road that are growing by leaps and bounds. This is possible only through alternative transport systems, be it bicycles, public transport or car pooling," adds Patwardhan.As Tim Tompkins, a transport expert in New York comments in Contested Streets, "The difference between a great city and a mediocre one lies in how the city uses its public spaces." Well, Pune certainly needs to learn this lesson.