Poor urban planning causing lack of infra, impacting pedestrians: Experts
NEW DELHI: Citing poor urban planning causing lack of infrastructure—a situation exacerbated by increasing vehicular traffic and inadequate footpaths—experts on Tuesday voiced their concern about pedestrians’ rights being ignored in India.
They were speaking at a two-day ‘Connect Karo’, a flagship annual event organised by World Resources Institute (WRI) India, an independent research organisation, in New Delhi.
Speaking at a session titled “Safer Streets for Tomorrow: Learnings from a Decade of Practice”, Director of National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) Debolina Kundu said that none of the urban mission launched by the Government aimed at renewal of cities except Smart Cities Mission (SCM) talks about walkability.
“We are talking about pedestrian mobility of cities, so we cannot do that until and unless we really mainstream pedestrianisation…I believe it is very important that we really sensitise our policy makers and at all levels. Interventions need to happen at the ward or sub-ward level,” she said.
The Lead Transport Specialist at World Bank Gerald Ollivier also painted a grim picture of pedestrian facilities in the country and spoke about how improved walkability and cycling transformed the metro service in Sri Lanka’ Kandy.
“The city (Kandy) had invested $10 billion in metros. The metros were not carrying out enough people. The people were not satisfied…And then we worked with them for a full $150 million programme, only focused on walking and cycling. $150 million may seem like big, but compared to the $10 billion, it’s 1.5 percent.
So it’s not a very big investment relative to the major investment in mass transit and other systems. The project was completed two years ago and it had an economic rate of return of 55%. It contributed massively to an increase in ridership in the metro and the quality of the urban environment completely shifted,” said Ollivier.
Connect Karo brings together leaders committed to critical issues related to sustainable cities, clean energy, food, land and water, and climate action and finance. Earlier, speaking at the plenary session on ‘Financing India’s Transition’, NITI Aayog chief executive officer (CEO) BVR Subrahmanyam said, “India is undertaking an unprecedented experiment to become a developed nation by 2047, while walking a low-carbon path.