Promoting sustainable and equitable transportation worldwide

Chennai’s Streets for People initiative wins the Ashden Awards

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Over the last five years, Chennai’s Streets for People initiative has been instrumental in transforming over hundred kilometres of the city’s streets for more accessible and equitable mobility. An initiative of the Greater Chennai Corporation with technical support from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) India Programme, the Streets for People initiative has been selected as the winner of the acclaimed international Ashden Awards 2020 in the Sustainable Mobility (International) category.

Rethinking Urban Mobility

With citywide lockdowns and the suspension of public transport systems, COVID-19 has forced cities to rethink urban mobility. The pandemic has illustrated what streets without cars could look like, and people around the world have reclaimed their street spaces for mobility or access to essentials and services among others. More importantly, the lockdown has amplified the importance of walking and cycling as affordable, equitable, and sustainable modes of transport for a large section of the urban population. 

The Streets for People initiative in Chennai was aimed at improving walking and cycling infrastructure and enables people to move safely through the city. In Chennai, these streets proved extremely effective during the lockdown, enabling physical distancing and safe movement in neighbourhoods. As cities reopen and physical distancing becomes the new normal, the importance of such people-friendly initiatives for pedestrians and cyclists grows manifold.

The Ashden Award celebrates the city and its citizens for accomplishing such an amazing feat. In essence, the award recognises ITDP India Programme’s objectives to improve the quality of life in cities so that future generations inherit urban spaces that are liveable, equitable, and sustainable. The awards highlight sustainable solutions that tackle global issues such as climate change and create equitable societies. Chennai’s Streets for People initiative is among the 11 winners at the annual Ashden Awards, which was held on July 2nd 2020 in a virtual ceremony. The winners were chosen from over 200 applicants working on creating resilience, green growth, and fairer societies. 

The Chennai Streets for People Initiative

Since 2013, Chennai has been transforming its streets for safety, comfort, and inclusivity. In 2014, the city adopted the Non-Motorised Transport (NMT) Policy, to dedicate 60 percent of its budget towards NMT. Chennai was the first Indian city to adopt a policy of this kind. Since then, with the support of the ITDP India Programme, the city has – 

  • Before-The Pondy Bazaar Pedestrian Plaza
    After-The Pondy Bazaar Pedestrian Plaza
    Before The Pondy Bazaar Pedestrian Plaza After
  • Before-The Pondy Bazaar Pedestrian Plaza
    After-The Pondy Bazaar Pedestrian Plaza
    Before The Pondy Bazaar Pedestrian Plaza After
  • Before-The Pondy Bazaar Pedestrian Plaza
    After-The Pondy Bazaar Pedestrian Plaza
    Before The Pondy Bazaar Pedestrian Plaza After
  • Before-The Pondy Bazaar Pedestrian Plaza
    After-The Pondy Bazaar Pedestrian Plaza
    Before The Pondy Bazaar Pedestrian Plaza After

Impact of the work 

Lauded as making Chennai the “walking capital of the country” by L. Nandakumar, Chief Engineer, Greater Chennai Corporation, these interventions have led to wider footpaths, cycle-sharing systems, and last-mile connectivity in the city of Chennai. The initiative has helped in transforming over 120 kilometres of streets to be safe and accessible for pedestrians across the city. The project has improved access to roughly 300 bus stops and over 60 schools. Moreover, it has also helped in the effective implementation of parking management systems in approximately 500 kilometres of streets. 

  • Before-The transformation of Chennai's streets
    After-The transformation of Chennai's streets
    Before The transformation of Chennai's streets After
  • Before-The transformation of Chennai's streets
    After-The transformation of Chennai's streets
    Before The transformation of Chennai's streets After
  • Before-The transformation of Chennai's streets
    After-The transformation of Chennai's streets
    Before The transformation of Chennai's streets After
  • Before-The transformation of Chennai's streets
    After-The transformation of Chennai's streets
    Before The transformation of Chennai's streets After

Globally, cities like Paris, Milan, and London have allocated significant portions of their budgets towards creating walking and cycling-friendly infrastructure. Chennai has taken similar action through the Mega Streets programme, to create a city-wide network of streets with a lifespan of at least 30 years thereby prioritising ‘Liveability, Mobility, and Utility’. Launched earlier this year, the project aims to transform 1000 kilometres of streets in the city. The Government of Tamil Nadu, in its annual budget speech in February 2020, has expressed its intent to invest over USD $500M to replicate Chennai’s success in ten other cities, which will transform over 1600 kilometres of streets across the state.

A shining example for Indian cities

Chennai’s Streets for People initiative is a gamechanger in terms of transforming India’s cities into more equitable and people-friendly urban spaces. Moreover, the government’s intention to expand the project represents its potential to transform streets across Tamil Nadu for future generations. The Ashden award recognises and celebrates the success of Chennai’s Streets for People project done by the Greater Chennai Corporation supported by ITDP India Programme as not just the first step in scaling up across Tamil Nadu, but also as a lighthouse for urban development across the country. 

Written by Avishek Jha

Edited by Keshav Suryanarayanan

ITDP India Programme: A Decade of Impact

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Infographic Blog

“All urban residents of Indian cities should have access to jobs, education, and recreation through means of mobility that are safe, affordable, resource-efficient, environment-friendly, and accessible to all.”

Over the last 20 years, the ITDP India Programme has worked with nearly 40 cities across the country to make this vision a reality, impacting the lives of millions. 

We celebrate the completion of a glorious decade of work, and welcome a new one with renewed excitement and anticipation of the possibilities ahead. 

Designed by Keshav Suryanarayanan

Conceptualised by Aishwarya Soni, Keshav Suryanarayanan

Rethinking decision making through collaborative community planning

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The French philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre interpreted space as an entity that is not static, but one that is alive and dynamically shaped through the interaction of people with it. He stressed on the importance of the production of space through these social relations over merely treating space as an object. We, however, live in a world which largely follows the technocratic planning principles for managing these spaces, rather than  embracing the relations that form them. 

Through understanding the relationship between people and their surrounding environment inherent to every space, the cities can ensure a demand-driven approach to solution making, where decisions are largely tailor-made than mass produced to the context. This will ensure a multidisciplinary approach to solution making, where there is open knowledge sharing and a collaborative work of different stakeholders. An intervention will thus have more credibility when it is shaped through a participatory approach involving all participants who have a stake in it. 

The case of transformation along Sringeri Mutt Road

An interesting example of how the participatory deliberation of the people can shape spaces they live in was observed in the case of the tactical urbanism intervention along the Sringeri Mutt Road, facilitated  by ITDP India Programme in Chennai. The quick and cost-effective initiative that was largely community driven, was aimed at enhancing the road and personal safety of the neighborhood, primarily women and children.

  • Before-Sringer Mutt Road
    After-Sringer Mutt Road
    Before Sringer Mutt Road After

Deepening Democracy: Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance by A. Fung and O. Wright  highlights three key principles of Empowered Deliberative Democracy which seem to be strongly embraced in this case.

The first principle speaks of ‘practical orientation’ of having a specific focus on tangible problems, which helps solve it through the next two principles. With abandoned vehicles and unauthorized parking lining the stretch along the canal, the dead spaces had become a breeding hub for anti-social activities.   The tangible problems in this case were identified as the need to enhance road and personal safety for the street users in the neighborhood.

The second principle is about ‘bottom up participation’ which calls for including people directly affected by the problems, to serve as a channel for experts and citizens to work together. The direct involvement helps in increasing efficiency, trust, and accountability. The ITDP India Programme was able to measure the root cause of the concerns through initiating dialogues with the different stakeholders in the neighborhood. Those who faced the brunt were frequent users of the street, which were the local residents and the students and teachers of the neighboring school. The different layers of the problem were gradually unwrapped through site visits and discussions with these users

The third principle on ‘deliberative solution generation’ involves joint planning and problem solving through a process of deliberation. The participants hear out each other’s concerns and work together towards developing a solution through discussions than heated arguments.The fresh lease of life that the space witnessed was due to the efforts of the Chennai Traffic Police, Greater Chennai Corporation, civic action groups like Thiruveedhi Amman Koil Street Residents Association (TAKSRA) and Karam Korpom, Chennai High School (Mandaveli) and the ITDP India Programme.


Sketch by the author on the case of Sringeri Mutt Road based on the principles of Empowered Deliberative Democracy

This case showed alternate approaches to transformations that a city can witness, where deciphering the needs and solutions is a joint process with the people involved, than a top-down approach.

Moving towards a systemic change

The intervention on the ground, its success and the interest it has lit amongst the city officials to scale- up, draws parallels to stage model of social innovation discussed by Robin Murray, Geoff Mulgan and Julie Grice.

Source: Stages of Social Innovation from ‘Social Innovation Regimes An Exploratory Framework to measure Social Innovation’ Castro Spila, Javier & Luna, Álvaro & Unceta, Alfonso (2016)

The tactical urbanism solution as a prototype addressed the poor social conditions that prevailed. The smiles that it achieved in bringing to the faces of the children and other users have reflected the triumph of the approach and the city is pushing towards scaling up these quick, low cost and community driven interventions to other areas. 

Pugalis and Giddings in their work on ‘The renewed right to urban life’ extends on the Lefebvrian philosophy which values the coproduction of space. They bring up the concept and importance of ‘little victories’, small wins that add up to create strong ripples capable of bringing a systemic change.  A systemic change involves the gradual reshaping of mindsets that have been accustomed to a set machinery and distribution of power. These steps to scale up the interventions, however reflect the possibility of bringing a systemic change that values the collaborative approach to decision making, by prioritizing the needs of the most vulnerable users. The interest of the city to facilitate this decentralized approach, indirectly shapes this into a coordinated decentralized system, taking the best of both systems.

As a country that has shaped through over seventy years of democratic politics, there is an inherent need to see citizenship as something that is as dynamic as a space itself. Urbanist Luigi Maza speaks of the dual nature of citizenship, one that is not just a bundle of rights and obligations, but a dynamic social process of the citizens contributing to the production of spaces, redesigning its rules and obligations. As the city  adopts new ways of decision making, the citizens also have to start thinking outside the walls of the homes they have built and see the entire city as their home and contribute towards improving it. After all, as Jane Jacobs rightly put it, ‘Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody’.

Written by AV Venugopal

Edited by Kashmira Dubash


Some paint, few brushes, kids young & old: Sringeri Mutt Road’s tale of transformation

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With a spring in their step and a song in their heart, elated school children walk along a vibrant walkway and cross over the new zebra crossing to reach their school. Thanks to the efforts of the Chennai Traffic Police, Greater Chennai Corporation, civic action groups Thiruveedhi Amman Koil Street Residents Association (TAKSRA) and Karam Korpom, Chennai High School (Mandaveli), and ITDP India Programme, Sringeri Mutt Road in Chennai has been given a fresh lease of life.The quick tactical urbanism intervention, using temporary measures such as paints and traffic cones, has helped reclaim the street for pedestrians, especially the children who use this street to access the seven schools in the neighbourhood, providing them with a safe and lively walking experience.

The menace that was

The school authorities further shared that a majority of the students walk to school. However, the adjoining footpath is uneven and dotted with obstructions that force pedestrians to spill over onto the road and into the swarm of motorists, putting them at even further risk.

Even the residents echoed much of the same concerns regarding safety. With abandoned vehicles and unauthorised parking lining the stretch along the canal, the dead space had become a breeding hub for anti-social activities. A survey among the street users, conducted by the ITDP India Programme, indicated that two out of three users felt unsafe to walk down the Sringeri Mutt Road after sunset.

Tired of living in the fear of using their own street, resident associations came forward to kindle a new approach to driving change.

Community-driven transformation

The transformation brought about by TAKSRA along with ‘Karam Korpom – Stop Abusing Public Spaces’, a group that reclaims public spaces through art, displays the power of community-driven initiatives. Their work has inspired neighbouring groups and other communities in Chennai to take up the mantle for reclaiming their streets. The makeover of Sringeri Mutt Road is yet another instance of residents rolling up their sleeves to revive a desolate area into a vibrant community space.

Turning over a new leaf

In the first step towards Sringeri Mutt Road’s makeover, abandoned vehicles were towed off by the Chennai Traffic Police. To liven the dead space, the walls on both sides were given a fresh coat of paint. Following which, students, volunteers, and even excited traffic officials were given paint cans and brushes to let their imaginations run wild on these blank canvases. Next, a quick, impromptu tactical urbanism intervention was conducted.

Within a matter of days, the stretch that once instilled fear was transformed into a safe and colourful walkway. Post-intervention surveys show that over 90% of the users now feel safer in using the street.

  • Before-Sringeri Mutt Road
    After-Sringeri Mutt Road
    Before Sringeri Mutt Road After

Looking forward

Tamil Nadu has constantly hit the headlines for the dubious distinction of leading the country’s road fatality figures. In 2017 itself, the state recorded an abhorrent 3,500 pedestrian deaths in traffic accidents. The traffic police, therefore, is resolute in taking steps towards improving road safety for all users – most importantly, children. Measures like tactical urbanism interventions are significant in helping the cause and hence, public support for such movements are imperative for scaling this up successfully to more areas.

The case of the Sringeri Mutt Road makeover is an encouraging example of citizens shaping their public spaces and doing their bit to make streets safer. These small-scale initiatives feed into the ongoing work of creating a city-wide network of streets that facilitate safe walking and cycling for all. With over 1,500 anganwadis in the city, the Chennai Corporation envisions to improve the mobility to all anganwadis and schools, thereby making a leap towards child-friendly cities.

Let’s hope that the transformation witnessed along Sringeri Mutt Road sets the ball rolling for more community-driven initiatives. Such quick, low-cost, and scalable interventions are bound to catalyze long-term changes across the city.

Written by: Aishwarya Soni; A V Venugopal

Edited by: Nashwa Naushad; Rohit James

Video Credits : Santhosh Loganaathan, Aishwarya Soni and TD Achuthan




Chennai enroute to humanising streets through better design

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Having successfully created over 100 km of Complete Streets with wide and vibrant footpaths, Chennai is now expanding its efforts! The city aims to create a master plan for a city-wide network of streets for walking and cycling, along with adopting Street Design Guidelines to guide all future projects.

“The engineering team in Chennai has already been involved in many street redesign projects and has a lot of ideas. The stage is set, now we just need to scale up the work and transform Chennai with a Non-Motorised Transport master plan,” said the newly appointed Commissioner of Greater Chennai Corporation G Prakash, IAS, at an internal kick-off workshop on 8 March, 2019.

The day-long workshop, held by the Greater Chennai Corporation with technical support from the ITDP India Programme, was set with a dual agenda. Firstly, it aimed to establish the vision for Chennai to create a Non-Motorised Transport (NMT) master plan and to identify the process to develop the same. Secondly, it aimed at the dissemination of information from the design guidelines to the engineers and officials from various departments of the city.

Through a hands-on and participatory exercise, participants were able to give feedback to improvise the guidelines. The workshop brought together over 60 participants, comprising of engineers and officials from different departments of the Greater Chennai Corporation.

NMT Masterplan

All global metropolitans, including Indian ones, are waking to the realisation that it is imperative to prioritise walking and cycling while planning cities. To quote placemaking pioneer Fred Kent, “If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.”

“With over 100 km of streets reclaimed for pedestrians and cyclists, Chennai is certainly on the right track of prioritising people over motorised transport,” said L Nandakumar, chief engineer of the Greater Chennai Corporation, while presenting various street transformations and laurels the city has achieved over the years.

The need for an NMT master plan was highlighted by Aswathy Dilip, Senior Programme Manager at the ITDP India Programme, who spoke of the requirement for bringing a network approach in the planning of  projects in the city. This will help scale up the existing projects, ensuring the street transformations are not scattered and instead done in a holistic manner. An NMT master plan will ensure the promotion of environmentally friendly modes that encourage healthy lifestyles. It will also contribute to social equity by improving accessibility to work and home for all cross sections of the society.  

The proposed approach for the Chennai NMT master plan is in line with the Tamil Nadu Mega Streets Programme, that plans to redesign 1,600 km of roads across ten corporations in the state.

Chennai Street Design Guidelines

Over the past few years, Chennai has been taking great efforts to create safe, walkable, and livable streets that cater to all user groups. Known as Complete Streets, these are designed with wide and continuous footpaths, safe pedestrian crossings, dedicated cycle tracks (where applicable), conveniently placed bus stops, clearly designated on-street parking, organised street vending, and properly-scaled carriageways.

With many more streets in the pipeline to be redesigned by the Greater Chennai Corporation, the NMT master plan looks to drive this vision through with a set of guidelines to direct the design and implementation process.  The main focus being to improve the user experience and ensure seamless connectivity. As a result, the state is planning to adopt the Chennai Street Design Guidelines—which draws from various Indian Roads Congress guidelines and also from the city’s own learnings from its street design experience.

The guidelines aim to create streets for all users. It is intended for urban designers and most importantly, government officials and citizens who look to inhabit better quality urban environment and bring back life into our city streets.  For this purpose, the design guide identifies the different functions of streets and emphasises the need for complete streets that accommodates all.

Besides the step-by-step design process chart, the guidelines offer designers a checklist of information to be collected prior to designing the street. It also highlights the various elements that form a complete street. Through street and intersection templates, one can get a sense of how different elements come together to create different types and sizes of streets.

Hands-on Exercise

To better understand the concept of Complete Streets, the engineers, at the workshop, were engaged through a hands on exercise to use the guidelines to redesign a city stretch. As interest grew in the exercise so did the valuable feedbacks, which have been noted and the ITDP India Programme will work to improve suitably.

 

 

 

 

In 2014, Chennai set an example for the rest of the country by adopting the non-motorised transport (NMT) policy. It sent out a clear message: Chennai prioritised its people over cars. By creating a master plan for a city-wide Complete Streets network and adopting the Street Design Guidelines, the city is adding more feathers to its already illustrious cap. These moves reflect Chennai’s commitment to create safe streets that consider the needs of all users.

 

Written by A V Venugopal

Edited by Rohit James and Kashmira Medhora Dubash

Strides towards Smart Cities in India : The Complete Streets Framework Toolkit

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Have you ever wondered what truly makes a city? Is it just the layers of history seen through the built forms, or is it also the people and their interactions, which breathes life into these spaces on the streets? Streets in Indian cities have always been filled with this magic, weaving stories through the interplay of people travelling through the space for travel, business and other activities, inturn giving them a unique identity. Occupying approximately one-fifth of the total urban land area, streets are amongst the most valuable urban assets of any city.

However, India is at the crossroads of an ever-increasing demand for transportation and vehicle growth, due to rapid urbanisation, economic development, and growing wealth among households. This has made it critical for Indian cities to introduce sustainable mobility measures, to ensure a safe, equitable, and livable future for its people.

With this aim, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, under the Smart Cities Mission,  launched ‘The Complete Streets Framework Toolkit ’ with technical inputs from  ITDP India Programme, on 26th February 2019, in New Delhi. It is aimed at guiding the 100 selected  cities to prioritise walking, cycling, and public transport over cars, unlocking the inherent potential of the street space.

The toolkit is intended to be used by decision makers, city officials, engineers, planners, and consultants to develop a complete streets policy framework, design and implement as per standards and guidelines, and evaluate the progress.

The fault in our streets

Walking and cycling are critical transportation modes for the people in Indian cities, providing low-cost and a healthy means of travel. In spite of the surge in the use of cars and two-wheelers, nearly fifty percent of the population across the country still depend on walking and cycling, both as a primary mode of transport and for last mile connectivity. Yet, the ground reality is starkly different, with only one percent of all streets in India, having walkable footpaths.

The most vulnerable users of the street, the pedestrians and cyclists, are left to face the brunt of unsafe streets. Road fatality rates in India have surged to 20-25 times that of developed countries. With 56 pedestrian deaths and 10 cyclists deaths per day, reported in 2017 by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, the streets in India are certainly not safe for its people.

Increased traffic congestion and road fatality rates, impacting the liveability and well being of the citizens, has raised the need to invest more in improving the sustainable transport infrastructure in the country.  

MoHUA paves the way for a walkable India

The Smart Cities Mission has thus emphasised the need for the creation of pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, promoting walking and cycling as an integral part of urban development. In order to achieve this, the top 100 cities need to redesign and transform over 40,000 km of city streets into complete streets by 2030. This will help the Indian transport culture get back to more sustainable ways while ensuring citizens reclaim their streets from the clutches of cars.

The transformation, in the name of complete streets, aims to redesign Indian streets with high-quality footpaths, segregated cycle tracks, safe pedestrian crossing and regulated on-street parking; basically, improve accessibility for all citizens, regardless of age, gender, and physical ability.

The toolkit consist of seven volumes: i.Complete Street Policy Framework  ii.Complete Streets Policy Workbook iii.Complete Streets Planning Workbook iv.Complete Streets Design Workbook v.Complete Street Implementation Workbook vi.Complete Streets Evaluation Metrics vii.Complete Streets Best Practices. The step-by-step approach adopted aims at helping the cities in their decision making process, for bringing forth the transformation of its streets.

The toolkit begins with guiding cities to embed complete streets best-practises into a policy to set the big-picture vision. Clarity on the vision can better guide decision-making by the state and city administrators. Master planning follows suit, creating city-wide walking and cycling networks to ensure continuity and integration with public transport. All public transport commuters begin and end their journey by foot or cycle, thus, the impact of such network planning is far-reaching.

Network planning also helps cities identify particular streets that can be retrofitted or redesigned with footpaths and cycle tracks depending on the adjoining urban environment. The Design Workbook provides best-practise standards, guidelines, and the processes for designing complete streets by city officials, engineers, urban designers and consultants. Designs can look great on paper, but high-quality implementation of footpaths and cycle tracks is the game-changer. The Implementation Workbook is more of a check-list for urban designers, municipal engineers, and contractors on how to implement footpaths in complex urban environments. Finally, the progress must be monitored – the Evaluation Metrics details key performance indicators for monitoring transformation.

The Complete Streets Toolkit will help sketch a streetscape with opportunities for the millions whose lives would significantly be improved – especially women, children, and differently-abled people. A conscious effort to care for the most vulnerable members of the society is indeed a reflection of a developed country and a smart city. Afterall, as Shakespeare put it, what is a city but the people?

ITDP India set to represent Pune’s Complete Streets success in Germany!

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ITDP India is excited to be invited as a panelist and a speaker at the International Conference of the Research Training Group KRITIS, at Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. Pranjali Deshpande, Senior Manager of the ITDP India Programme, will showcase the progressive interventions implemented by Pune to bring back life to its car-centric streets.

City records show that as of 2016-17, Pune had 2.3 million two-wheelers and seven-hundred thousand four-wheelers, and ranked second in terms of vehicle density among Indian cities. City administrators soon realised that pre-emptive measures for urban mobility was the need of the hour, and that’s when Pune started to break new ground!

In-line with the National Urban Transport Policy, Pune aims to achieve its goal of reducing dependency on personal motorised vehicles from 50 percent to 10 percent by 2031. In 2017-18, Pune’s budget witnessed a paradigm shift in its transportation expenditure wherein over half of the city’s transport budget was spent on sustainable transport initiatives – in particular walking and cycling.

These streets are made for walking, and that’s just what they’ll do…

Pune footed the ambitious Complete Street scheme, with technical input from the ITDP India Programme, to transform over 100 km of streets that prioritise pedestrians and cyclists. This was based on a unique set of Urban Street Design Guidelines adopted by Pune in 2016.  

The first phase—on JM Road and DP Road—was lauded across the country, even winning the Housing and Urban Development Corporation Award and the Volvo Mobility Award 2017. The redesign brought new life to Pune’s streetscape! Following on Pune’s footstep, even Pimpri-Chinchwad started the process of designing 75 km of street networks in the city.

JM Road, Pune

Maintaining its stance that Pune is for people and not for vehicles, the city administration heralded a new era of an efficient paid parking system in 2018. The Pune Parking Policy, for which the India Programme provided technical support, introduced an efficient paid parking system and a management cell to oversee implementation. The city awaits its implementation on-ground.

The success of sustainable transport projects in Pune is an ode to the efforts of the Pune Municipal Corporation and Pune Smart City Development Corporation Ltd., and their collaboration with organisations including ITDP India Programme, Parisar, Pedestrians First, Prasanna Desai Architects, and the Center for Environment Education.

The transition from a motor vehicle-dependent city to a people-friendly city is not easy without the support of citizens. To ensure success, the municipal corporation conducted several public consultation drives. And, the city continues to do so, ensuring that sustainable urban mobility practices are a continuous exercise and woven into the new people-first transport culture.

What the people of Chennai have to say about the pedestrian plaza proposal at Pondy Bazaar

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Chennaites’ love story with Pondy Bazaar is one which spans across many generations, long before shopping malls sprouted across the city. It continues to weave its charm, attracting people from all walks of life across the world to be a part of this unique shopping experience. “Since my childhood I have been coming here for shopping. The experience of walking from shop to shop with my parents is a fond memory, which I am reliving now with my kids,” said Mr.Balaji, a 46-year old shopper. For him and many others, Pondy Bazaar is not just a space, but an emotion. To further enhance this feeling and the overall experience, Chennai Smart City Ltd. and Greater Chennai Corporation with design support from Darashaw and Studio R+R is implementing the much-awaited pedestrian plaza along Thyagaraya Road, the 1.4 km stretch of Pondy Bazaar between Panagal Park and Mount Road.

While the city is eagerly anticipating the plaza, local shopkeepers are concerned that the removal of cars and parking from Thyagaraya road might affect their sales. To understand the ground reality and possible solutions to address their concerns, the ITDP India Programme conducted a public opinion survey. Results show that only 25% of the shoppers visiting Pondy Bazaar park on Thyagaraya Road. These vehicles can be accommodated in the side streets and around Panagal Park, which is already preferred due to the availability of parking. The shoppers are eagerly looking forward to the vibrant pedestrian plaza, expressing their preference for an unhindered shopping space over cars!

Over the years, cars have gradually been dominating the street space, making life difficult for the shoppers. “I take fifteen minutes to cross this road! Accidents! Pollution! There is no peace of mind, and it’s because of the traffic,” said a survey respondent. Pondy Bazaar has become vehicle centric, taking space away from the public.

The pedestrian plaza planned by the city with support from the ITDP India Programme, is envisioned as an attractive public space for shoppers. With continuous pedestrian walkways, ample opportunity for seating, comfortable tree cover, and colourful play elements, the plaza will be easily accessible for women, children, senior citizens and people with disabilities.

The project aims at transforming the street to encourage more people to walk, shop and wander, without the fear of accidents. It will enhance pedestrian and cyclist safety, foster community interaction, and boost local businesses. Once implemented, the Thyagaraya Road will prioritise public transport and cars will not be allowed. By transforming the shopping street from a car-centric to a people-centric space, the pedestrian plaza will result in better air quality, health, and wellbeing of the users.

The citizens had a glimpse of the new Pondy Bazaar experience during the trial runs held in November 2016 and February 2017. With cars stopped from entering Thyagaraya Road, traffic progressed smoothly and shoppers had more room for walking and other fun activities and games. The space was filled with laughter, smiles, and a new-found energy, showing the impact the proposal could have on the users, for generations to come.

Despite the excitement for this project, the local shopkeepers have raised concerns about the impact of pedestrianisation on their revenue. With the proposed multi-level car park still under construction, the shopkeepers are worried that shoppers would drive away to other destinations with better parking facilities. To understand the actual travel needs of the shoppers, the ITDP India Programme conducted an on-ground survey of over 500 shoppers, in collaboration with the RVS School of Architecture.

The survey showed that over half of the shoppers reach Pondy Bazaar by means of public transport, walking or cycling. Amongst the private motor vehicle users, more than half already park on the side streets and at Panagal Park. While Thyagaraya Road has a capacity of roughly 200 vehicles, the side streets which are currently under-utilised for parking, can accommodate nearly 500 parked vehicles.

Therefore, one possible and feasible solution is to shift parking from Thyagaraya Road to the side streets, through an effective parking management system. Demand-based parking fees combined with strong enforcement will ensure that cars are not irresponsibly parked in front of residence gates or on footpaths. This will also help shoppers find parking spots more conveniently through their phones, saving time, and fuel.

When asked about accessing Thyagaraya Road from the side streets, 78 percent of the users felt it was easy to park on the side streets and walk to the shops. A whopping 94 percent of the shoppers expressed how they were looking forward to a Pondy Bazaar, free of cars and designed for the pedestrians.

Pondy Bazaar has always been and will continue to remain a strong evergreen sentiment. By prioritising pedestrians, especially children, elderly and other vulnerable users over vehicles in the Pedestrian Plaza, Chennai is opening up new ways of experiencing the space. The people and their interactions make a city. The Pedestrian Plaza is bound to attract more locals and foreigners, boost the economy and above all, enhance the identity of this shopping hub.

 

Written by AV Venugopal

Edited by Kashmira Medhora Dubash

 

A year of highs: taking Indian cities closer to sustainable mobility

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The path to urban development is laid with good intentions but the one paved for sustainable development is full of good work.

A take on the age-old proverb, this is exactly the ethos that the ITDP India Programme has persevered for, while mobilising the landscape of India’s transport system. This effort, to infuse the principles of equality and sustainability to the core of urban mobility, was taken up a notch in 2018.

The year marked the India Programme’s two decades of catalysing change in over a third of urban India. In this pursuit, of creating better streets, better cities, and better lives, the ITDP India Programme registered some major wins and here are some of the notable achievements in 2018:

 

Creating Complete Streets for all  

The Indian state of Tamil Nadu is grappling with a myriad of urban transport and related infrastructure issues—resulting in congested roads, unbreathable air quality, and increasing road fatalities. Another cause of concern is the struggle endured by its most vulnerable road users—pedestrians and cyclists who vie not just for space but for their lives.

To change the existing state of affairs, the Tamil Nadu Commissionerate of Municipal Administration (CMA) led the Transforming Tamil Nadu project. With technical assistance from the ITDP India Programme, the project aims to implement Complete Streets in ten of its most populous cities, other from Chennai—Coimbatore, Erode, Madurai, Salem, Thanjavur, Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Tiruppur, Trichy, and Vellore.

Over a period of nine months, the India Programme held ten workshops to sensitise over 300 officials, from these ten cities, on ways to identify, map, plan, and implement city-wide street master plans that prioritise walking, cycling, and access to public transport.

As a result, the state has announced its intentions to raise Rs 20,000 crore to redevelop 1,700 km of urban streets across these cities. The objective being: improve safety, accessibility, and liveability for all road users. To set precedent, the India Programme will work with GIZ Smart-SUT to help pilot city-wide plans for walking and cycling in three cities; gradually scaling the project to other cities in Tamil Nadu.

Riding ahead with a public bicycle sharing system

Caught in a transitional phase, Ranchi’s formal transport system hasn’t been able to meet its growing travel demands. This has allowed two-wheelers and share autos to flood the market and fill in the void.  As the capital city of Jharkhand prepares for course correction, the ITDP India Programme is providing its technical expertise to pioneer the much-awaited ‘public bicycle sharing (PBS) system’ with 1,200 cycles!

A first in Jharkhand, the construction of the system began in early 2018 to provide a healthy, pollution-free mode of transport that is linked to transit networks. Hence, reducing dependence on two-wheelers. Ranchi is now in the midst of procuring 600 cycles as part of phase-I, which is expected to be completed by early 2019.

ranchi PBS

Embedding best practices in policy work

With 1,260 vehicles per km, Pune, one of Maharashtra’s larger city, has the second highest vehicle density in India. City administrators realise that pre-emptive measures to stifle private vehicle growth is the need of the hour.

After years of deliberation, the elected representatives of Pune gave their seal of approval to a progressive on-street parking policy in 2018. The policy, prepared with ITDP India Programme’s technical expertise, aims to streamline on-street parking and dissuade the use of personal cars and two-wheelers. Post implementation, valuable land currently encroached by haphazard parking could be transformed into vibrant public spaces—free from the nuisance of motor vehicles. Keenly interested in regulating parking management, Pimpri-Chinchwad was inspired to adopt a similar parking policy.

The policy proposes clearly demarcating legal and restricted parking spaces

Moreover, Maharashtra also showed its willingness to improve infrastructure for walking, cycling, and public transport. The state government inched closer to adopting the Maharashtra State Urban Mobility Policy. The India Programme assisted the state government to conduct a series of six consultation workshops with public officials of various cities and other stakeholders including civil society organisations.

Expanding the agenda through capacity development

To ensure the sustainable mobility mantra takes shape into a belief, the concept and its principles need to be ingrained among all levels of governance. Thus, the ITDP India Programme is greatly involved in conducting capacity development workshops for officials to expand their knowledge and skills on sustainable mobility.

Over the year, the India Programme has conducted 35 workshops on Sustainable Mobility, Public Transport, and Complete Streets in Chennai, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Ranchi, and smaller cities of Tamil Nadu. Subsequently, over 1,100 government officials including senior officers of the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) and urban transport practitioners from across the country have been trained in the due course!

Engaging transport conversations in India and across the world

The India Programme’s policy brief on ‘Women and Transport in Indian Cities’ struck a chord at the Women Mobilize Women conference. Hosted in Leipzig, Germany, the first-of-its-kind conference offered a platform for women from various global transport organisations to share their personal stories on creating sustainable mobility solutions–for women and by women. The India Programme’s participation, which included moderating a panel discussion and presentation on the policy brief, was very well-received.


The India Programme was also invited to speak at the MOVE Global Mobility Summit 2018–which was organised by the government policy think tank NITI Aayog and attended by the Prime Minister. The dialogue laid the foundation for reinventing public transport in India, as the conference aimed at creating a public interest framework to transform transport systems.

 

Publishing of knowledge products

In 2018, ITDP India Programme released its publication Footpath Fix, on implementing footpaths in complex urban environments. A reference guide for urban designers, municipal engineers, and contractors, the publication was well-received by officials in the cities of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

As part of the H8 Committee of the Indian Roads Congress (IRC), the India Programme provided technical inputs on the new IRC BRT Guidelines, Planning and Design of Urban Road, and IRC 70: Regulation and Control of Mixed Traffic in Urban Areas. These standards and regulations are expected to guide Indian cities towards sustainable mobility and in 2018, two of them—BRT Guidelines and IRC 70—were officially published by the IRC.  

Forthcoming endeavours for 2019

Recognising the need for sustainable and accessible-for-all mobility, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) of the Government of India has sought the India Programme’s help for the creation of a series of five complete streets publications. Based on these documents, the India Programme will facilitate nation-wide capacity development workshops to guide the 100 cities, selected under Smart City Mission, to create smarter streets for its people!

Furthering its bid for sustainable urban transport, Maharashtra, with the technical expertise of ITDP India Programme, aspires to roll out a plan to procure 65,000 buses to improve intra-city and regional connectivity. Hence, signing off on the state’s concerted attempt to meet its travel needs in a sustainable fashion.

In a bid to broaden its horizon, the India Programme is venturing into new research areas including a comprehensive study on Congestion Pricing for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). The study will assess the need and effectiveness of congestion pricing as a Travel Demand Management (TDM) measure and evaluate challenges and opportunities in its implementation in Greater Mumbai. Given its scope, the study can also guide other Indian cities to plan and implement the same.

Work is underway, at both the state and national level, to weave sustainable mobility into India’s urban reality. And the India Programme is at the forefront of streamlining the transition.  Here’s to all the hard work of the year gone by and looking forward to many such concerted efforts in the upcoming year.

As stated early on, the path to reimagine Indian cities from the perspective of equitability, livability, and sustainability is full of good work and ITDP India Programme is all set for the long haul.

 

Written by Rohit James

Edited by Kashmira Medhora Dubash