For City pedestrians, it’s the pits!

For City pedestrians, it’s the pits!
Deccan Herald

Flyovers, elevated highways, subways, underpasses and grade separators – the IT hub of the country has all of them. But a small detail seems to have been overlooked by the City’s planners: the conspicuous absence of a decent footpath. Pedestrian safety ranks somewhere down in the bottom of the City administrators priorities. Proof? Exhibit A: The cracked, crooked old pavements in nearly all parts of the City. Exhibit B: The fact that no new ones are to be sighted with the naked eye.

The first phase of the Bangalore Traffic Improvement Project -- B-TRAC 2010 -- got all of Rs 350 crore in the State Budget allocation this year. And, mind, creating pedestrian facilities is one of the main areas where this money is to be spent.

To be fair, the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike has taken up footpath ‘restoration’ along 100 km across its 100 wards. The project involves barricading of footpath at strategic locations covering a total of 10,000 metres and crosswalks and pelican signals at 50 new locations in the City.


Booted out!

The physical restoration of pavements may be in full swing, but pedestrians have nothing to write home about. Authorised shops use the footpaths to stock their wares. And along with ubiquitous street vendors, they have forced the pedestrians on to the roads.

The BMP Commissioner himself admitted as much when he declared at the beginning of the footpath upgradation drive: “The pavements will be renovated, but eviction of street vendors is not the priority as yet, as it needs a larger rehabilitation plan.” How about the licensed shop keepers? Nobody seems to know or care.

The BMP officials say street vending is an “essential feature” of any city. “We should legalise them by issuing trade licences and streamline them by creating special hawking zones. This will decongest the footpaths and help smoother and safer pedestrian movement,” says a senior BMP official.

In 2004, the BMP had mooted the concept of food courts to stop street vending. However, the proposal is now gathering dust for want of space to open the food courts ward-wise.

“The plan involves rehabilitation of a large number of street hawkers, who also resist relocation,” add officials. Maybe, the denizens of Bengaluru will be hearing more about SHZs (not to be confused with SEZs) in the coming days!

What the SC said

In 1985, the Supreme Court, in the Bombay Hawkers Unions vs Bombay Municipal Corporation case, directed that each city should formulate its own schemes which would include hawking and no-hawking zones. However, no municipal corporation has implemented this rule.