The Right to Walk Foundation June 27, 2008
The Right to Walk Safely on Clean, Encroachment-free Footpaths
http://www.right2walk.com/
The Right to Walk Foundation has been created to create awareness and fight for the Right to Walk on the clean and encroachment free pavements amongst the citizens of Hyderabad.
We find that the pavements are taken over by a number of people. People park their vehicles on them, hawkers sell their wares keeping their ‘bandis’ on them and the worst thing is that people use the pavements as a ‘urinating place’. Corporates use the place in front of their retail outlets as parking space. In most cases, there is no clear demarcation of the footpath and the carriageway.
Why should the APSTRC ensure that pavements are usable?
The pedestrians will walk on the pavements or at least the police can enforce that the pedestrians walk on the pavements and this will make the traffic flow smoother. The traffic flow being smoother has many positives. One is that pedestrian deaths will be greatly reduced, greater fuel efficiency and also the risk of heart diseases reduces for the bus drivers.
Thus APSTRC has a number of gains in the long term if they can manage to pavements clear for public use.
A typical road in Hyderabad means that there are a number of people walking on the road and crossing the road at various points. The problems of people who are walking on the roads instead of the foot paths means that the bus driver has to extremely careful as he pulls the bus into the bus stops. He cannot really see the people who are at the extreme left of the bus and hence would find it difficult to check whether any pedestrian is in line with the movement of the bus. Also pedestrians who are crossing the road cross at various points since there are no fixed pedestrian crossings at all in Hyderabad.
Why should the drivers of APSTRC try to get the pavements made usable?
If the people instead of walking on the roads are made to walk on footpaths, then the drivers have a number of benefits.
Among them are
Have fewer accidents with pedestrians: The drivers will find the roads only with motorists and not have pedestrians on the road thereby reducing the number of pedestrian deaths.
Have less stress and tension while driving: Since the pedestrians will only walk on the footpath, the driver can drive without much of stress since he does not have to worry whether people are going to cross or walk on the road. This reduction in stress will benefit the driver’s health in the long term.
Less pollution: Since the bus will be at a greater speed throughout the journey the pollution will be definitely less because the bus will have a greater fuel efficiency and less stop and go.
We hope that APSTRC will take up this matter with the concerned authorities and make pavements pedestrian friendly.
As of July 3, 2008, the matter about the responsibility of footpaths is pending with the State Information Commissioner’s office. Neither the GHMC nor the Roads and Buildings accept the responsibility of the footpaths on the roads belonging to the Roads and Buildings.
It is a win-win situation for all the peolple, if clean and encraochment free footpaths are made in the city.
We have been trying to contact the APSRTC officials to try and get the message across of the necessity of having clean and encroachment free footpaths and safe pedestrian crossings.
The Right to Walk Safely on Clean, Encroachment-free Footpaths
http://www.right2walk.com/
The Right to Walk Foundation has been created to create awareness and fight for the Right to Walk on the clean and encroachment free pavements amongst the citizens of Hyderabad.
We find that the pavements are taken over by a number of people. People park their vehicles on them, hawkers sell their wares keeping their ‘bandis’ on them and the worst thing is that people use the pavements as a ‘urinating place’. Corporates use the place in front of their retail outlets as parking space. In most cases, there is no clear demarcation of the footpath and the carriageway.
Why should the APSTRC ensure that pavements are usable?
The pedestrians will walk on the pavements or at least the police can enforce that the pedestrians walk on the pavements and this will make the traffic flow smoother. The traffic flow being smoother has many positives. One is that pedestrian deaths will be greatly reduced, greater fuel efficiency and also the risk of heart diseases reduces for the bus drivers.
Thus APSTRC has a number of gains in the long term if they can manage to pavements clear for public use.
A typical road in Hyderabad means that there are a number of people walking on the road and crossing the road at various points. The problems of people who are walking on the roads instead of the foot paths means that the bus driver has to extremely careful as he pulls the bus into the bus stops. He cannot really see the people who are at the extreme left of the bus and hence would find it difficult to check whether any pedestrian is in line with the movement of the bus. Also pedestrians who are crossing the road cross at various points since there are no fixed pedestrian crossings at all in Hyderabad.
Why should the drivers of APSTRC try to get the pavements made usable?
If the people instead of walking on the roads are made to walk on footpaths, then the drivers have a number of benefits.
Among them are
Have fewer accidents with pedestrians: The drivers will find the roads only with motorists and not have pedestrians on the road thereby reducing the number of pedestrian deaths.
Have less stress and tension while driving: Since the pedestrians will only walk on the footpath, the driver can drive without much of stress since he does not have to worry whether people are going to cross or walk on the road. This reduction in stress will benefit the driver’s health in the long term.
Less pollution: Since the bus will be at a greater speed throughout the journey the pollution will be definitely less because the bus will have a greater fuel efficiency and less stop and go.
We hope that APSTRC will take up this matter with the concerned authorities and make pavements pedestrian friendly.
As of July 3, 2008, the matter about the responsibility of footpaths is pending with the State Information Commissioner’s office. Neither the GHMC nor the Roads and Buildings accept the responsibility of the footpaths on the roads belonging to the Roads and Buildings.
It is a win-win situation for all the peolple, if clean and encraochment free footpaths are made in the city.
3 comments:
Hello!
Your spirit and efforts are good.
Please keep going.
chintasastry
i am not repenting why i have not started such movement. anyhow now i find somebody who has started.
bravo.
I am happy that a forum is available now to express difficulties of common citizens of hyderabad , mainly pedestraians , may be ineffective traffic police , may be lot of political interference in day to day traffic problems , without giving adequate powers to police , generally most of the vehicle users feeling very insulted and arrogant to follow road rules , some times feeling very proud to brake them , least civic sense which is normaly observed in some UP , Bihar , MP cities , do not care for a good name for their city , most adventourous on the road , got a credit all over world as a most confusing traffic since I happen to see vedio clippings in net , I shall describe some of my horrible experiences in hyderabad foot paths and service roads , some other time.
SV kishore.
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