Tough to walk on Bangalore’s footpaths: study

Tough to walk on Bangalore’s footpaths: study
Ranks 12, Way Behind Delhi
R Krishnakumar | TNN

Bangalore: When was the last time you walked on pavements? Not many roads in Bangalore can boast of decent footpaths. So you walk on the roads dodging vehicles, a risky proposition.
Bangalore, busy with its flyovers and toll expressways, is not a pedestrian’s city. A new study on traffic and transportation policies and strategies in urban areas in India confirms this: it perceives the city as pedestrianunfriendly. Bangalore is ranked 12th among the 30 sampled cities on the walkability index. It’s estimated that 16% to 58% trips in Indian cities are made on foot. The study raises concerns over pedestrian infrastructure, amenities and services being sidelined during the urban planning process.
Commissioned by the Union ministry of urban development, the study reveals that major cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad — rank higher than Bangalore on the index.
The walkability index is calculated as (W1 x availability) + (W2 x facility rating). Here, W1 and W2 are parametric weights, assumed as 50% for both. The availability is the footpath length/ length of major roads in the city and facility rating is the score based on the opinion on available pedestrian facilities.
A higher index reflects better pedestrian facilities in the city concerned. The study shows Bangalore has 0.63 as the index. Chandigarh with 0.91 tops the list of the 30 sampled cities. The average index for all the sampled cities is 0.52. The report released in May 2008 reflects that tourist cities like Varanasi and Shimla and small and medium cities have scored low on the index. In London, the index is roughly estimated as between 1.5 and 1.7.
According to experts who work on integrating land use with transportation models, there’s no dearth of plans for the pedestrians. The difference, though, comes when they are taken to the implementation level. So, while the buzz is on short-term, tangible projects like grade separators, the big, inclusive picture with rightful space for the pedestrians and cyclists gets blurred.
M N Sreehari, traffic and transportation expert, traces the issue to the planning level, when road projects are designed with the vehicles — and not the people — in mind. “The IRC (Indian Road Congress) stipulates that a minimum of 1.5-m pavement space should be ensured on each direction but the scene in Bangalore is abysmal. To make things worse, the existing pavements have obstructions like transformers, hawkers and trees,’’ says Sreehari.
On roads like K G Road and Commercial Street, the walkers’ space should be above 2.5 metres, Sreehari notes. With pedestrians figuring in 38% of the road accident deaths in Bangalore, the city can’t afford to let the walker’s space shrink further, experts said.