The Statement of problem

The only way our cities can crawl out of the quagmire of vehicles and pollution
is to promote public transport systems at a scale and pace nobody has done or
seen. The fact is our cities, with bumper-to-bumper traffic and dangerous levels of air
toxins, have - believe it or not - only just begun to motorize. People do not move in
cars in our cities, even if choked roads give that impression. In Mumbai, statistics
tell you that roughly 20 per cent of the city owns private cars.
However, only 15 per cent of the city's people drive to work, school or shop.
These car users take up 90 per cent or more of the road space, and over 26 per cent
of the city's urban land is already under metal.

The situation is the same across the country. Therefore, the only option for
our cities is to reinvent mobility so that we do not have to drive - we can ride a bus
or a train. The aim should be to use road space efficiently; move people, not
vehicles.
This is not possible unless we plan for what is called in transport lingo "lastmile connectivity". Simply put, we will not, or cannot, take a metro train or ride a
bus if we cannot get to the station or to our destination with ease.
Mumbai, for instance, has over 150 kilometers of world-class metro
facilities. But how does the commuter get to the station? Buses are not easily
available or convenient, and footpaths do not exist. I cannot walk or cross the
street. I cannot think public transport will change the face of my city. That is why
we need to think about where we walk. And the cruel fact is that we don't. A
number of people in our cities walk, but they are invisible to planners and a
nuisance to car drivers. According to the government's own estimates, roughly 30
per cent of city dwellers across the country commute daily by walking.
In Mumbai, a comprehensive 2010 government-sponsored study shows 34
per cent of the daily "person trips" are walk-only. In addition, 27 per cent walk to
take a bus, and almost all metro users walk before they can ride.
We are blind to those who walk. That's why pavements are the first casualty of
street widening to accommodate cars. That is why signal-free roads are the buzz,
even if they mean that there is no light to stop vehicles so that people can cross the
road. That is why we make bus stops and then put railings on road dividers; people
cannot cross safely.
This is not the only problem. It seems we do not even know the right way to
build pedestrian-friendly streets. Global practice is to build footpaths at a short
height above the road - most cities mandate 150 millimeters - which is easy to use.

The width is at least two meters, allowing two people to walk easily. Our cities do
not have specific codes for designing pedestrian-friendly roads. Instead, road
engineers use the Indian Roads Congress (IRC) codes for construction. But this
association is known for its work in highway design, so till its last revision in 2012
it did not specify the height of the footpath.
Road engineers had a field day doing whatever it took to make walking unenjoyable. In Mumbai, drains have been covered along the roads to double up as
sidewalks. The height is 400-500 millimeters, so one has to jump or climb.
The 2012 IRC code specifies a minimum width of 1.8 meters and a height of
150-250 millimeters. But now new challenges emerge. As cities lower the height,
cars climb over pedestrian walkways.
The footpath becomes a free-parking zone. In this way, the vocal minority of
car users takes the space reserved for the commuter on two legs. Equity in road
space is easy to talk about but hard to enforce.
This is now the design dilemma: what should be the height of the footpath?
Should we follow international design standards? Or should Indian planners
acquiesce to Indian habits and build practically?
The problem is compounded by the fact that the penalty for illegal parking is
so little that it does not matter. Cities cannot revise parking fines because these are
mandated under the Indian Motor Vehicles Act.
The Bill to increase the deterrence for wrongful or unauthorized parking has
been lying with Parliament for the past four years. Pedestrian questions are not
pedestrian after all. Think and look so that we can walk, not drive.