Most streets, even if they are side-streets or by-lanes are uneven, potholed and with a random distribution of open or partially open manholes. Then there are unexpected boulders, stray wires, jagged bits of miscellaneous hardware and other varied impedimenta that you would have to negotiate as you walk. This is the standard scenario in broad daylight, writes former IAS officer Juthika Patankar
If you were somebody who walked in Pune (or any other city in India for that matter), here are some typical situations you would frequently encounter :
You are rudely forced to vacate the footpath because a long stream of impatient two-wheeler riders decide to use the footpath to zoom ahead as a means of beating the traffic jam on the motorable road. You find yourself trying to move ahead using whatever bits of road are available for your feet, one at a time. You run the risk of being knocked down by speeding traffic which squeezes itself into every available inch of the road to get ahead. Its terrifying enough when you are young and have your faculties and wits intact, but what if you were elderly or infirm?
You take your morning walk down quiet leafy lanes only to be suddenly forced into ditches or hedges or garbage dumps because a huge school bus descends on you. School buses exhibit unwonted solicitude for poor children who cannot walk down the lane to wait for the bus on the main road. The buses obligingly thrust themselves into tiny uneven lanes to pick up and drop children who seem to be incapable of walking the short distance to a more convenient accessible spot on a wider main road. Naturally, there is no question of any concern whatsoever for pedestrians using the lanes.
Most streets, even if they are side-streets or by-lanes are uneven, potholed and with a random distribution of open or partially open manholes. Then there are unexpected boulders, stray wires, jagged bits of miscellaneous hardware and other varied impedimenta that you would have to negotiate as you walk. This is the standard scenario in broad daylight. After dark you may add the woes of poor or non-existent street lighting and the sudden speedy appearance of vehicles which you cannot see in the dark and then you are blinded by their headlights. Add stray animals loitering and foraging for food and you have the full picture.
Road intersections are a nightmare because the traffic signals either make no sense (nobody seems to follow them anyway) or they are non-operational and in any case the traffic rarely heeds them. So you cross roads by darting across them at your peril.
Innocuous roads which have been converted into four-lane ‘smart’ roads are impossible for pedestrians if you have to traverse them to reach an obscured bus-stop on the other side. Long detours, hazardous crossings and senseless, directionless negotiation has to be undertaken to reach your destination, the bus-stop. This is no country for walkers. Pune is like any other city in this regard.
So walk at your own risk. But do remember that the burning issues of the day are carbon footprints, air pollution, the need for healthy living, the skyrocketing price of petrol, the congestion of too many vehicles. You would think that the state or the municipal governments would welcome pedestrians, encourage walking and make it possible, if not pleasurable. But you would be completely wrong. Our roads are not meant for pedestrians.
Is it too much to expect of our local governments that they can make roads navigable by walkers? That roads and streets and pavements could be used safely by walkers? That the rule of law would prevail and all those violating the traffic rules would be penalised without exception to secure deterrence?
Our governments are busy constructing eight-lane expressways, flyovers, glitzy business spaces and cosmetically upgraded city spots to impress foreign dignitaries. But all this will be of no avail unless the rudimentary principles of a civilised society are imbibed in each one of us. Walking is the humblest, least aggressive mode of commuting from one place to another. A society, a nation which respects the humble, the non-entitled and makes the world liveable for such citizens could be said to be truly civilised, truly environment-friendly, truly committed to the preservation of ecological balance on the planet. By not making our roads and pavements fit for walking, we as a society and nation are guilty of callousness and perpetrating gross social injustice on all those who rely on their feet for reaching their destination. Disrespect for ordinary pedestrians, disregard for the rule of law makes society unjust and inequitable. We need to acknowledge this and take corrective measures if we expect our country to make huge economic advancement on the road to greatness.
We might make some progress on the road to ‘Development’ if our local governments could enforce the rules for motorists, pedestrians, cattle-owners and the like to ensure that persons inclined or compelled to walk can walk on the roads without fear of accident or injury. Walking towards measured and planned ‘Development’ would surely be a preferable option to hurtling recklessly towards ‘Smart‘ chaos for all.
(Juthika Patankar is a Visiting Faculty in Gokhale Institute of Politics & Economics, Pune and a former civil servant. Views expressed are personal.)
