In a first, Mumbai gets safety cell for pedestrians

Although pedestrians are the ones who have the first right on the road, seamless walking on Mumbai roads is nothing less than a farce. Now, for the first time a 'Pedestrian Safety Cell' has been initiated by citizens; which includes transport experts, citizen groups and urban planners. This cell will hold periodic meetings with the BMC, traffic police, transport department and other government agencies who are involved in improving the basic infrastructure of the city.

This issue has come forth as 51% of people who lost lives in road accidents and 47% of those sustaining injuries, were pedestrians. Off these, 58% of the fatalities were due to three and four wheelers which crashed into pedestrians. This information is based on a data and study made by the Mumbai Traffic Police and Bloomberg Philanthropies as part of global road safety initiative, in 2018.

On Thursday, the first of its meeting took place to identify the primary points needed for convincing the government bodies and planners to incorporate as part of pedestrian safety. "We have formed a cell for addressing issues related to pedestrians which shall then be raised with concerned authorities. At present, there is little space for pedestrians. Until now the designs of a road is prepared keeping motorists in mind. For the first time, a separate budget of Rs 100 crore has been kept aside for footpaths," said AV Shenoy, member, Mumbai Mobility Forum.

It is a known thing that people at any given time of the day walk on roads than footpath as it is occupied by hawkers and vendors. This causes chaos for both pedestrians and motorists alike. The urban planners present at the meet discussed what they are doing across the city as part of various projects for improving the experience of pedestrians.

"At certain traffic junctions where crossings are longer; we are designing them in a way that will reduce the distance for crossing and also create refuge islands for people to stand. This will ensure that people need not run to crossroads," said another urban designer on condition of anonymity. There were also discussions on removing the railings bordering the footpaths from the road. The experts claim that people are dissuaded from using the footpaths as they do not know when the railings would end and they end up walking on roads.