ST MARK’S ROAD:Finally, TenderSure work on St Mark’s Road and Vijay Mallya Road is done. The best thing about the new design is that it restores to the pedestrian her rightful place. The footpaths are actually wide enough for pedestrians to walk on. In a city that’s constantly widening its roads, footpaths are rare, and footpaths that serve as footpaths are even rarer.
Over the past two decades, the city’s planners have treated pedestrians with contempt. Since the 1990s, when then chief minister S M Krishna announced he would turn Bengaluru into Singapore — a boast oblivious to Bengaluru’s superiority to that city-state in many respects — footpaths have shamefully disappeared from our roads.
It should be obvious that Bengaluru is more culturally diverse than Singapore. And right from Kempegowda through the Mysore maharajas to the town planners in the early decades of independent India, we have understood the importance of public spaces. Bengaluru is a city, while Singapore is a place of trade. It is Brigade Road.
Once considered a sylvan paradise with pedestrian-friendly paths everywhere, Bengaluru is now hell for those venturing out on foot. Citizens of an earlier generation jokingly referred to walking as ‘Nataraja service’, eulogising Shiva in his avatar as God of Dance as their patron deity. Today, as we know, those foolish enough to walk are forced on to the roads for want of footpaths, and mowed down every now and then.
For the first time in decades for any leader in a position of responsibility, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has come out in support of pedestrians. Initially, during an inspection, he had agreed with the complaint that TenderSure footpaths were too wide, and promised to narrow them down. But he later changed his mind, saying not everyone travels by car, and pedestrian safety must get priority.
In their anxiety to please the affluent class associated with the IT sector, governments of the last two decades had flouted all town planning principles and created an inhuman city with no place for children, senior citizens, and those preferring to get around on foot.
V S Naipaul, the Nobel laureate, caustically described Bengaluru as a city with no footpaths. TenderSure roads address that taunt, and are trying to make it possible for Bengaluru citizens to return to the age-old, eco-friendly practice of walking.
The space available for vehicles has indeed narrowed down, and that is bound to generate some disgruntlement. The wide footpaths are not peopled enough, perhaps because citizens are still jittery about walking.
When TenderSure work was in progress on Cunningham Road, it was dug up in such a way that pedestrians had to pussyfoot between a treacherous ditch and a raging road. The High Court had taken a critical view of the mess created in the central business district, and told the municipal authorities not to ‘hospitalise healthy roads’.
Yet, for restoring dignity to the pedestrian — and there must be other reasons — TenderSure deserves the wholehearted support of all citizens. Despite its problems, TenderSure has brought back memories of a more enlightened era. Hopefully, it will also inspire us to preserve our footpaths in the neighbourhoods, and recover space originally meant for pedestrians.
More coming up
Project TenderSure is “all about getting the urban road right.”
It aims to address “issues that have made Indian roads so notorious for their chaotic traffic, potholes, broken footpaths, overflowing drainage, (and) poorly placed power transformers.”
Twelve roads in Bengaluru are set for development under
TenderSure:
Phase 1: Vittal Mallya Road, St Mark’s Road, Richmond Road, Residency Road, Museum Road, Commissariat Road, Cunningham Road
Phase 2: Jayanagar 11th Main, Modi Hospital Road, Siddaiah Puranik Road, KG Road and Nrupathunga Road