Sidewalks anyone?

By Adwait at 7 March, 2010, 9:46 am

There are no adjectives to describe the traffic scenes in the cities we live in. There is no scope for lying and praising it or justifying how crazy it is. ‘Seeing is believing’ as it is said and everyone who has been a traveler for a day at least, has seen the traffic.

How it works.
How it moves.
How it breathes.

They say, if you can drive on Indian terrain, you can drive anywhere. I believe that is true. You don’t drive on Indian roads. The roads carry your vehicle especially if you are on your mo-bike. Sometimes it gets a bit frustrating. When you are driving and have a roof over your head, with music playing, and the air conditioning on, it makes things easier… gradually taking one away from the road. The ultimate separation is sipping coffee, reading the newspaper or a magazine, sitting in the back seat, with a designated driver doing his job.

What we forget all the time, is that traffic doesn’t affect only the people with vehicles. But it encroaches on all its surroundings. The buildings off the roads are victims to pollution, dust and noise: the three major departments where the traffic and roads take a toll on the surrounding structure, whether they are residential or commercial. Obviously, the poor residential buildings are the worst hit; they are situated directly off certain main roads.

Apart from the buildings, the traffic is also ruthless to the pedestrians. It is physically impossible to cross roads in Indian metropolitan cities, even with working traffic signals. Ideally speaking, the roads and layout should be in such a way that a pedestrian shouldn’t be scared or harmed while walking or crossing the road. But neither is guaranteed in India.

There are no pedestrian friendly roads in our country. Half the roads’ footpaths are either too small, or they are dug up and forgotten or ignored to be re-laid. The other half simply do not have side-walks leaving the people no choice but to make it harder for the vehicles to drive.
But what about those nice big footpaths with good tiling? Sure they are not an extinct breed, but no one seems to see them. University road in Pune (where I live) has a footpath and adjacent to that has a cycle path, which is a nice 5 feet wide. This makes the so called non vehicle zone a 10 feet wide path. But sadly no one chooses to use it.

When I drive by, I try explaining to a few of my pedestrian citizens. The conversion rate of my explanations I think is in negative figures. Some people ask me to mind my own business. Others ignore. As far as I can remember, there was only one occasion when an uncle came in my way while I was taking a turn on my bike and I gestured, that he shouldn’t be here and that he should be walking on the path. He smiled and admitted his mistake.

So this is the sad story of footpaths. It’s not like there is a shortage of footpaths. But no one wishes to walk on them. Side-walks make pedestrian life much easier. So next time you see a side-walk empty, make sure you put someone on it!

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Categories : Politics & Society