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The New Chennai Streetscape

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With technical assistance from ITDP India, the Corporation of Chennai has implemented the first kilometer of a planned 30 kms of new, pedestrian-friendly footpaths. The footpaths are part of the larger vision established through Our Cities Ourselves (OCO) Chennai, a collaborative visioning program to imagine and achieve a more livable, equitable, and sustainable future. The new footpaths, primarily in the Egmore area of Chennai, formalize and expand sidewalks and areas for pedestrian traffic, making them safer and more accessible. The projects were implemented along heavily trafficked streets, including Police Commissioner Office Road, Pantheon Road, and Halls Road. By reclaiming space for pedestrians, the footpaths are an important step in making Chennai a place that prioritizes people over cars. The footpath design was guided by ITDP’s principles for street design, Better Streets, Better Cities.

Chennai’s new footpaths are just the beginning. ITDP India is working with the city to implement good pedestrian footpaths along all of the city’s bus routes, as well as build bikeways, protected bus lanes, and pedestrian plazas throughout the city. Using street design guidelines developed by ITDP for India, programs like OCO are creating a strong vision for the future, and giving us the tools to make it happen.

In Chennai, Our Cities Ourselves Focused on People, Parking and Density

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“Cities are for people,” said Mr. Phanindra Reddy, a Municipal Secretary of the Chennai Metro Rail (CMRL) in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, “this is the mantra we have to keep in mind when we do our work.” This sentiment was echoed by keynote speaker, city planner and educator Peter J. Park, and Senior Town Planner Neela Munshi of the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority, at ITDP’s Our Cities Ourselves workshop in Chennai, India.

The workshop, “Enabling Transit-oriented Development”, focused on station area planning around the Koyembedu metro station, set to be the first to open when Chennai metro rail begins operation within the next three years. Peter Park opened the workshop with an overview of international best practices in TOD, and discussion of his work as a city planner for the cities of Denver and Milwaukee. This included increasing neighborhood density, creating more infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians, and reforming land use codes to allow for less parking and more walkable, accessible places around transit. One project that piqued quite a bit of interest was Park’s removal of a flyover in Milkaukee, and his demonstration and encouragement of highway removal in other cities around the world. This was of significant interest in Chennai, as flyovers are a common sight, and building more of them is often considered inevitable.


Ms. Neela Munshi gave an engaging presentation on the planned transformation of Ahmedabad, which boasts India’s most high quality bus rapid transit system – Janmarg. New land use regulations allow for greater density in the city’s central business district, new affordable housing provisions and reduced parking requirements. Ahmedabad abolished lot coverage requirments to enhance the public realm by bringing buildings closer to property lines. The city now also grants density bonuses to developers who wish to build more density around transit, which will help pay for streetscape improvements.

Mr. Kumar Rajaraman, Managing Director of Chennai Metro Rail, noted that the visions produced as part of Our Cities Ourselves showing new footpaths and dedicated bus lanes is the kind of forward-looking planning that is missing in Chennai. “People need to imagine what the future of Chennai can be, and work to make it better,” said Mr. Rajaraman.

OCO Chennai is a workshop series and exhibition supported by ClimateWorks Foundation and Volvo Research and Educational Foundations, that offers solutions to support walking, cycling, and mass transport options for a more sustainable future.

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OCO Chennai Builds Support for Non-Motorized Transport

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In the City of Chennai, the welfare of pedestrians and cyclists is often overlooked as crowded roads teeming with cars and rickshaws become even more congested and demand more space. Sidewalks are rare, quality sidewalks even rarer, and crosswalks, when they exist, are often ignored. Promoting non-motorized transport is a priority at ITDP, and requires a radical rethinking of the street space. By calling attention to the problems, crafting creative solutions, and building support, ITDP is helping Chennai and many other cities reshape their urban environments.

The Our Cities Ourselves Chennai workshop brought together many prominent voices in shaping Chennai’s future, including the Commissioner of the Chennai Corporation, Vikram Kapur (center, blue shirt) and Chennai Mayor Saidai Samiyappan Duraisamy.

Over the weekend, ITDP India organized a day-long workshop around non-motorized infrastructure issues in the city of Chennai as part of the Our Cities Ourselves workshop series, supported by Volvo Research and Education Foundation (VREF) and ClimateWorks Foundation. The Chennai City Commissioner and Mayor were in attendance, supporting new footpaths across the city and greater street safety. Caroline Samponaro, Senior Director of Campaigns and Organizing at Transportation Alternatives in the US, shared her experience of working with the government in New York in bringing change to the city’s streets. “Building dedicated bus lanes, cycle tracks and footpaths is the greatest thing any Corporation can do. And if you build it, people will use it,” she said.

Attendees of the workshop included engineers from various city departments and local neighborhood districts, members of the disability alliance, local bicycle advocates, traffic police, and members of good governance groups. Workshop participants developed ideas for street improvements in smaller groups, and presented their recommendations to the Commissioner of the Corporation of Chennai for consideration.

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Our Cities Ourselves (OCO) 2013 in Chennai, India, with support from the Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA), Corporation of Chennai (COC), Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), Tamil Nadu Commissionerate of Municipal Administration (TNCMA) and other partner organizations, is an exhibition and events program that offers solutions to support walking, cycling and mass transportation options for a more sustainable future. Highlighting international best practices, the program will foster an exchange of ideas on present urban conditions, key challenges, and solutions to realize our vision for better streets and better cities in Chennai.

ITDP India Workshops in Pune and Chennai Focus on Transport Planning through Capacity Building

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by C. Ranga Rohini, ITDP

Indian cities have traditionally been centered around walking and cycling as the primary means of transport. For example, Chennai’s Comprehensive Transportation Study reports that walking and cycling account for almost 34 percent of all trips made in the city. With an increasing number of private vehicles on the road, the demand on road space growing by the day. Although there is an inherent recognition of the need to improve walking and cycling facilities in general, there is little understanding of design measures that could help make streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

To address all these issues, ITDP held a series of capacity building workshops in Pune and Chennai from 4 to 8 February. The workshops brought together municipal engineers and officials working in the field together with street design expert Michael King from Nelson Nygaard. The workshops sought to bridge the gap between theory, reaality, and practice.

Mr. King specialises in multimodal transportation for livable communities. By working at the intersection of transportation and urban design, with a particular emphasis on pedestrian safety, bicycle facilities, traffic calming, and street architecture, he endeavours to ensure that streets serve the diverse needs of urban residents—beyond their role as a conduit for motor vehicle traffic.

In each workshop, participants formed groups and went out to visit a given site. The site audits gave participants a chance to examine the grim conditions faced by pedestrians every day. These issues were then addressed through a collaborative design exercise among the members of the group, the key aspects of which were then presented to the other groups to enable cross-learning and debate.

Considering that the city of Chennai has initiated a project to improve footpaths on 71 “bus route roads” in the city, the exercise comes at a crucial time to enable the decision makers and engineers to interact with experts and chart out a way forward. In Chennai, eager participation from local bureaucrats gave an impetus to implement some of the proposals as pilot projects, with Mayor Saidai Duraisamy indicating that all 400-odd main streets within the Corporation limits will be taken up for pedestrian improvements over the next 4 years.

ITDP is in the process of compiling the results of the workshop and preparing implementation plans based on participant drawings. Earlier workshops are beginning to yield results: in the city of Pimpri Chinchwad, officials have initiated the redesign of an intersection that was the subject of a workshop in September 2012. To conclude, in the words of Mr. Vikram Kapur, Commissioner, Corporation of Chennai, “All that is required is a change in mindset and a will to do it.”

Envisioning a Comprehensive Transport Plan for Chennai

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by C. Ranga Rohini, ITDP

With a population of over 4.7 million and with a rapidly growing economy, the city of Chennai faces the challenge of providing efficient, safe, and reliable transport solutions to its citizens without compromising on quality of life. The onus of this responsibility currently falls on a number of agencies in the city and brings with it a slew of issues in planning, coordination, and accountability. The Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA) was formed in November 2010 with the aim to address these issues—to serve as a single nodal agency that directs planning, operations, and monitoring of various transport modes in the metropolitan area of Chennai. One of CUMTA’s key responsibilities is the preparation of a Comprehensive Transport Plan that looks at the planning and development of public transport options and their implementation through various agencies.

To facilitate this process, CMDA, in collaboration with the Institute of Transport and Development Policy, organized a workshop from 22 to 24 January 2013 that brought together various government stakeholders along with experts and academicians to discuss the CUMTA’s vision and to develop viable strategies and actions to carry the vision forward.

Participants formed groups to deliberate on four primary topic areas: 1) CUMTA as an agent of change for the Chennai Metropolitan Area: defining CUMTA’s role as a planning, monitoring, and coordinating body to facilitate interagency coordination. 2) Developing an integrated, high quality bus and BRT network for the entire city: expanding the bus fleet, implementing BRT, introducing an integrated fare collection systems across modes, and providing customer information. 3) Improving streets and the public realm: developing pedestrian friendly street design standards and planning guidelines, identifying greenway networks, and improving intermodal links. 4) Management of road space and travel demand: implementing a robust on-street parking management system, facilitating compact development around public transport stations, and implementing dynamic road pricing solutions.

At the workshop, Mr. Ben Plowden, Director of Surface Transport at Transport for London, described the city of London’s experience in bringing multiple public transport providers under a single umbrella, starting in 2000. He showed how London has been able to achieve a reduction in the use of private cars over the past decade through the steady expansion of sustainable transport options, including expanded bus service and a network of high quality cycle tracks. “You need a transport system that is adequate to meet the demands that the city will put on it,” pointed out Mr. Plowden. “That means focusing on mass transit.”

Workshop attendees included representatives from CMDA, the Corporation of Chennai, Chennai Metro Rail Limited, Highways Department, Transport Department, TNRDC, Metropolitan Transport Corporation, consultants, NGO Chennai City Connect, faculty from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, School of Architecture and Planning, Anna University, and representatives from unified metropolitan transport authorities in Bangalore and Delhi, among others.

To achieve the vision of transforming Chennai into a world-class city, a general consensus was reached on the need to assess existing resources, identify short-term goals, and focus on early wins to build CUMTA’s reputation. Participants stressed the role of data collection in enabling evidence-based planning and identified a need for a financial audit of existing spending patterns. “Data collection is critical,” explained Mr. K. Phanindra Reddy, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Government of Tamil Nadu. “Unless we know the scenario we are starting with, and the lacunae that we need to address, we will be groping in the dark.”

A key initiative to emerge in the workshop’s action plan is the creation of a common information portal for all public transport modes in Chennai. Geographically focused, time-bound pilot projects on pedestrianization, parking, street design, and multi-modal integration were also identified. ITDP has begun compiling the outcomes of the workshop into a strategic plan to be adopted by CUMTA. “The stakeholders have come out with each and every suggestion,” said Mr. Reddy. “That is a critical element for success of CUMTA. It’s time that we turn our plans into assets on the street.”

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Ensuring that all Chennai residents have access to high quality public transport was a key theme during the workshop. Shown above are the areas within a 5 minute walk of public transport.

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Charrette participants debated on the potential role of CUMTA in ensuring coordination among Chennai’s transport system operators.

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Participants discussed the importance of balancing the “link” and “place” functions of streets, using Chennai’s Saidapet area as a case study.

ITDP and Pune Municipal Corporation jointly organize Street Design Workshop

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Pune, traditionally known as the “city of cyclists,” and having built over 100 kilometers of cycle tracks, presently suffers from poor state of pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. A recent CAI-Asia report in 2011 states, “residential, educational areas and public transport terminals lack proper footpaths and other facilities that leaves pedestrians competing with vehicles for space, making it a one sided contest in Pune.”

To address these concerns, Institute for Transportation & Development Policy and Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) jointly organized a two-day Street Design Workshop on September 6 and 7, 2012.

The workshop consisted of a discussion of road safety principles for all users and a hands-on-exercise for 49 members of the technical staff from PMC. The workshop was led by street design expert Michael King, Principal at Nelson Nygaard, who outlined a three-pronged strategy for designing pedestrian-friendly streets: first, observation of physical conditions and street user behavior; second, iterative testing of design solutions; and third, setting a direction for policies that are supportive of non-motorized transport.

Throughout the workshop, King emphasized the importance of streets in urban fabric saying, “The most progressive cities of the world are the most walkables ones. The city should make streets for people and not highways for traffic.”

A walking audit of the network of streets connecting Pune Railway Station, Sadhu Vaswani chowk, Sassoon Hospital, and Council hall in Pune was conducted by the participants which comprised of executive engineers, deputy engineers, and junior engineers among others to assess the on-ground state of current pedestrian infrastructure, observe road user movement and capture the safety issues concerning people walking on the street. Participants were divided into five teams and sent to the selected site to observe pedestrian infrastructure, cycling facilities, public transport uses, land use changes and motor vehicle movement among others. The site was selected because of the heavy pedestrian movement in large numbers between the bus terminal, railway station and neighboring commercial and institutional land uses all throughout the day.

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Sabnis Madam, executive engineer with PMC giving a presentation on walking audit

Participants reacted to the conditions of the site saying, “There is a good chunk of cyclists on the road, and sadly for them there is no provision in the existing design. Also, there are too many obstructions on the walkway forcing pedestrians to walk on middle of road risking their lives”.

Later on, the teams were assigned the task of redesigning Alankar Talkies Chowk (located adjoining to the Pune Railway Station) based on the theme of pedestrians, cyclists, motor vehicle users, public transport users and public place. Each team visited the site at morning & evening peak hour to conduct traffic counts, observe the user behavior and traffic movement patterns. After the exercise, the team gave a group presentation on their “observation of the site” and “solution for the site” based on the designated theme.

Nitin Warrier, Senior Associate, ITDP India said, “The idea was to enhance participants understanding of road user behavior and to encourage participatory and inclusive planning of streets based on its usages by different road users. The learning from the workshop will help PMC in designing better streets for pedestrians, cyclists and enhancing the walking connectivity to nearest public transport facilities”

A similar one-day long workshop was conducted with 46 of Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation’s engineering staff on street design taking Chafekar Chowk, located in the heart of Pimpri -Chinchwad as the site for intersection design exercise.

ITDP India team comprising of Anuj Malhotra, Nitin Warrier, Pranjali Deshpande, Kumar Manish and Pratik Dave facilitated the team discussions and site visits in both the workshops.