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Time to step out
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Excuses are just excuses when it comes to walking. In the end, there’s no smarter way to travel in Bangalore, says RAKESH MEHAR
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Photo: K. Gopinathan
ON FOOT There is power and predictability to taking that hike
The city is at its glorious best: wherever trees stand, they are perfectly green and earthy and the characteristically mild temperatures mean that you could walk a dozen kilometers without breaking a sweat. Meanwhile, the jam at each traffic junction
in the heart of the city ensures that you’re sitting in your car twiddling your thumbs for 15 minutes at least. And yet, increasingly, more Bangaloreans prefer to sit cooped up inside their cars rather than just step out and take a walk. Ask why and they give you a hundred reasons.
As M.N. Sreehari, Chairman, Traffic Engineers and Safety Trainers, says, walking has grown increasingly unsafe with over 35 to 38 per cent of those killed in road accidents each year being pedestrians. All thanks to lack of proper pedestrian crossings even at major junctions, two-wheeler riders using footpaths and encroachments and poor lighting forcing pedestrians to walk on the road.
There is the growing garbage and debris problem, points out Narayan Rao of Corner House, adding that the many civic agencies add to this by digging up footpaths every few weeks.
The more recent additions to pedestrian woes, says writer C.K. Meena, is air and noise pollution, which saps one’s energy making walking far less enjoyable. However, say Meena, Narayan and other die-hard walkers, none of these reasons is enough to keep people from walking and those who love to walk still continue to do so. The real reason for the falling numbers of walkers in recent years is a problem of attitude rather than physical difficulties, they say.
“When people own a car or a bike, they refuse to use other transport because they are firmly tied to their vehicle. Most people would rather go around a full block rather than walk down to a store a few hundred feet on a one-way,” observes Meena.
And this dependence on motorised transport has also got to do with parsimony being on the downswing. “Earlier people were more conscious of petrol waste, and we would be worried about even one or two rupees worth of petrol. Nowadays people only calculate in multiples of tens and hundreds.”
What this vehicle-reliance has meant, adds Narayan, is that people live blinkered lives that are centred around the home, office and the nearest mall. “And once in a while, more to prove something to your peer group, you go to a national park or two,” says the avid walker.
Indeed, says Arun Pai, who runs a walking tour company called Bangalore Walks, people are so blinkered today that even when walking they tend to think like motorists. “Bangalore is actually a very small city, and it is possible to go anywhere in the Central Business District (CBD) within 20 or 30 minutes. But people have this perception that the distances they have to walk are very long.” For instance, he says, the distance between Cubbon Park and Lalbagh is just about two kilometres as the crow flies and little more for the walker. With all the one-ways and diversions and so on, however, the distance almost doubles for a motorist. The reason more people don’t walk more often, he says, is that once they’ve bought their own private vehicle, many perceive walking as a step backwards.
Kathyayini Chamaraj, Trustee of CIVIC Bangalore, concurs pointing out that this is the reason for the lack of outcry about the way planning in the city has always ignored pedestrians. “There is a class consciousness that associates walking with the lower classes. It isn’t fashionable to walk, and people feel it is infra-dig to admit that they walk.”
The current growth of vehicle density, however, is unsustainable insist experts, adding that the government must urgently reduce congestion by removing vehicular traffic at least in the CBD. “The city should have pedestrian zones in areas such as Commercial Street, Brigade Road and so on. When the city prevents pedestrians and slow-moving vehicles from using arterial roads, why shouldn’t they have areas that are completely car free? If they wish to have transport for those who cannot walk, then let that be non-motorised transport such as cycle rickshaws,” says Kathyayini.
Whether these policy changes come into play or not, says Arun, people should get out on their feet immediately because that’s the only smart way to travel in Bangalore. “Walking gives you a sense of power that you can go anywhere without parking trouble, traffic jams and so on.
And walking gives you predictability. You know that you will reach a place in the same time everyday no matter what, unlike in cars and so on, which depend on traffic conditions. In Bangalore a vehicle is a liability and the best thing to do is just foot it.”
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