As encroachments eat up footpaths, walkers are being pushed to the road. Will the Corporation be able to create space for them?
Last year, according to traffic police records, nearly 500 pedestrians died on the city's roads. The number of such fatal accidents is hardly surprising. With pavements fast disappearing from the face of Chennai, pedestrians are increasingly being forced to the road.
It is not as if the city didn't have footpaths — but today they have either been gobbled up by encroachers or made inaccessible by obstacles in the form of electricity junction boxes, parked vehicles, garbage bins, shops, signboards, wires. The walker has nowhere to go.
Tiruvottiyur High Road in north Chennai or Sardar Patel Road in south Chennai is a case in point. At any time of the day, one can see hapless pedestrians trying to make their way through buses, cars and two-wheelers, putting their lives at risk. So are the Mada Streets in Mylapore, where the pedestrian has to take measured steps in the narrow stretch left between shops spilling onto the road and parked vehicles.
In other cases, their very design renders them a waste. Sample this: around 10 in the morning, the busy Thirumalai Pillai Road in T. Nagar is brimming with vehicles of all sizes and colours. An elderly lady is about to step on the footpath, but it is a little high for her. She waits for a few seconds and asks a young man to help her ‘climb' it.
“My bank is not very far, but it is such a nightmare crossing this stretch. The pavements are too high for me. I need to climb up and down. Sometimes, I am forced to take an autorickshaw for such a short distance,” said S. Kamala, a pensioner living in the locality for over two decades. “If only the pavements were more convenient, I could comfortably walk both ways.”
Pavements in the city are unkind to all pedestrians, and senior citizens like her find them particularly inconvenient. With obstructions springing up for every few footsteps taken, Chennai's pavements are of little use to the pedestrians.
Until a few years ago, the ‘vanishing pavement syndrome' largely affected arterial roads, especially in commercial areas. But now, streets in residential pockets and smaller lanes have also succumbed to the problem.
Many neighbourhoods in the city are witnessing patches of green displace the footpaths. “The owners of this apartment just fenced the pavement and put some plants. It looks pretty, alright. But where do we walk,” asks V. Anand, an R.A. Puram resident.
With rows of vehicles parked along either sides of virtually every street, the gardens along road margins is the last thing they need, pedestrians note.
The Chennai Corporation has clearly failed in addressing the issue of encroachment along pavements — the average footpath in the city proves this.
It is one thing to address the issue of encroachments, and another to make provisions for pavements at the stage of planning, says A.T.B. Bose, co-convenor, North Chennai People's Rights Federation.
Having “given up” on the roads in the locality, he said that at least when new projects come up in the area, pedestrians should be taken into consideration. “Many of the new projects coming up in north Chennai are not pedestrian-friendly. For instance, the subway near Stanley hospital does not have adequate pavement space.”
Observing that policy makers design city roads only for those who own vehicles, Mr. Bose said: “In my student days, I remember how political parties would organise cycle rallies that began in north Madras. Then, there was space for cycles and pedestrians. Now it is impossible.”
According to Raj Cherubal of City Connect, an NGO working with the civic body to develop certain city roads, the Corporation is making an attempt now.
There can be no common template that can be used for all roads. Each road needs a studied approach to designing pavements. “Depending on the width, parking requirements and space for street vendors, a good pavement design can be evolved for each road. The Corporation should hire architects for the purpose,” Mr. Cherubal said.
Ideally, footpaths should be about 2 metres wide and six inches high, with provision for ramps. However, residents like disability rights activist Rajiv Rajan would say providing ramps for the sake of doing so does not really help.
Recently, he wrote to the Chennai Corporation citing the example of Turnbulls Road where, despite the presence of a ramp, rods erected on the pavement prevent easy movement of wheelchairs.
The Chennai Corporation would do well to remove encroachments along pavements, and simultaneously design pavements according to specific requirements of each road in the city. If it is concerned about the pedestrian, that is.
Keywords: encroachments, Chennai Corporation, civic issue
Chennai is the worst city for senior citizens and is a nightmare for everyone. Roads are narrow and full of encroachments. There is daylight robbery in the form of hired public transport namely autorickshaws, forcing people to use their own vehicles on congested roads. The pavements are badly designed and very badly maintained with broken or missing tiles. There are encroachments and at many places the pavment has been converted into an open-air toilet.
The highest number of traffic fatalities is of pedestrians (data source - Chennai
Traffic Police). The administration is happy to impose fines and collect as much
revenue as possible on Obstruction, encroachments etc, but why don't the
authorities visualize these during plan approvals. There are clearly 2 categories of
administrators - 1) One who fails to plan and 2) Others who plan to fail. I think
collectively we have created so much urban illness. Parking is a menace which is
slowly eating us up and sparking rages in the community. Absolutely no
awareness within the community to Plan their Parking and Park Right. There is a
new organization which was launched last month which provides parking info in
the city. For the readers benefit - www.upark.in. Good initiative which certainly
needs support from the community.
a couple of years ago, an american friend visited India (Bangalore) for the first time. It was her very first visit to an asian country. I took her around Vasanth Nagar to show her some shops and hotels. Guess what, she was terrified by the fact that there were hardly any platforms for pedestrians to walk on. Readers living in Basavesvara Road (Millers Road) know how difficult it is to walk to Vasanth Nagar. In order to not get hit by an autorickshaw or motorbike or car, or you name it, one has to dart, dodge and dance while walking. It was so pathetic. I did'nt know whether to laugh or cry with this american girl beside me. It was so shameful and I felt really embarassed. That was the time I felt inferior in being an Indian.
T Nagar can aptly be described as the mother of all encroachments. Encroachment has eaten away tremendous amount of road space as also the foot-path. Though the Chennai Corporation has been chanting for a long time that pavements are only for pedestrians, due to encroachments by the vendors/hawkers and even the shop owners, one wonders whether there is any pavement at all! It is a matter of shame that the civic body is unable to make available the pavement for the pedestrians with the result that they are forced to walk on the road risking their lives and limbs. Not only the pavements, but also the public space/service roads have also been completely taken over by the hawkers/vendors/commercial complexes. Ranganathan Street, Railway Boarder Road close to Mambalam Railway Station, Natesan Street and other Streets abutting Usman Road, the service roads on both sides of the Usman Road fly-over, are the worst affected.
In the platform on the northern side of Avvai Shanmugham Salai (Lloyds
Road) near the National Public School in Gopalapuram, concrete slabs
were removed and pits created recently at intervals of some six feet
from one another. They have since been abandoned and litter is
accumulating in the pits. The slabs removed are lying nearby. What
were the pits for?
I guess some political party announced a tree-planting campaign and
enthusiastic workers dug up the pits before the saplings were ready.
The campaign must have been forgotten as soon as the bigwigs said
grandiloquently that our planet must be made greener. Take TTK road nearby. You will find (from some other time) leafless stalks some two-foot high jutting out of pits right in the middle of the platform after removing slabs. Another tree-growing exercise in a shambles!
The end result of all this is inconvenience to pedestrians.
Take the flyover near the Music Academy. The roads on either side of
the flyover are narrow and have little or no platform. Pedestrians
cannot walk comfortably. Such being the case, the Corporation's plan
to beautify the space underneath the flyover (you published some
colourful pictures to show how the space would look when a grandiose
plan is executed at great expense) is laughable. My simple question
is: with the road on either side so congested, how will the public
reach the beautified space to look at the marvels created beneath the
flyovers and enjoy the ambience? Dart across the ever-flowing traffic?
The root cause lies with the POOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM which is largely responsible for multiplication of PRIVATE TRANSPORT such as two wheelers, four wheelers etc. When people can not address the issue at MACRO level and they tend to solve at MICRO level resulting in all sorts of inconveniece to all. One such issue is pedestrian foot path. If we do not address the issue of EFFICIENT PUBLIC TRANSPORT then we may have to pay heavy price sooner or later.
It is heartening to see "Hindu" has finally opened this issue. Our Chennai corporation is filled with officials who are appointed along party lines and their aspiration is to get rich quickly. Footpaths in Chennai are a national disgrace and has become a subject of jest among foreign tourists. This can only be solved if foreign contractors are brought in to repair our footpaths and remove the encroachments and has to have the support at the Chief Ministers level.
One of the developmental index for any country is how they treat pedestrians. India stunningly is very poor in this regard too. In view of our huge population, we do not value life. Did anyone notice 'To cross the road, press the button' marking on any road side post for road crossing in our worthy metros? Foot paths are always in horrible condition. No road markings.
Its not that there is lack of planning or lack of will to evict the
encroachers. Its the other way around. The politicians and civic
authorities "plan" it to be this way. Of course they understand the
"pulse" of their vote bank. Take care of the needs of this audience
(encroachers, semi-illiterate street vendors) and they are assured of a
steady, dependable constituency of votes. Tamil Nadu is going to the
dogs. Unless these third rate politicians are shown their rightful
place, which is the garbage bin, nothing will change.
I quite agree that most of the banks are located just in the centre of main roads and senior citizens are most affected.The junior citizens do most of the transactions through ECS and ATMs.They have also two wheelers or four wheelers to move around.the seniors un-neccesarliy frequent the banks,that too at the peak times.They do not trust their own children to do banking transactions for them. They want to pay telephone bills,electricity bills themselves.They want to do everything immediately,the moment they decide.Every house has an old person who is more active,more restless and more occupied after retirement.This attitude should change to avoid atleast some accidents on the roads n ot neccesarily fatal.We also feel there is a need for more agencies to help lone seniors in specific cases.The hindu should also write about where platforms are there like Anna nagar,Adayar,K.k.nagar etc.Even Sterling road has a very nice long platform.
Thanks for doing this article. Total lack of planning from city officials is the main cause of this. If there is path way ,then we can claim from obstructions, but if there is practically none, it is going to be a nightmare for people. Take for example the pathway outside IIT. Only one person can walk on it. If a person is coming from opposite direction then the other person has to get down to road, which is always seeing heavy traffic and it is quite dangerous
. It is same in most of Chennai. Will corporation take any action?. What officials are forgetting is that they are denying a fundamental right of person to walk.
encroachment not only footpath but also on the road is done without any fear of the big multi story bildings who dont bother about parking space when crores are spent builing them. They make a ramp for the cars to come to the main road in such height and slopes to the main road. A classic example is the apex towers building which is in the corner of a trafic signal. the building is on the corner of CP Ramaswamy road/2nd main road R.A Puram. They have encroached on both sides and pedestrians have no facility to walk and only on raod. Number of accidents have happened and it is right in front of the Kaliappa Hospital-now known as Belroth ospital. Such a huge company has no car park and the employees and visitors have been asked to park in nearby roads.The main place is 2nd cross st.R.A. Puram. Who is responsible to allow this? numerous building and houses are now following this and no authority bothers.It is time action is taken without fear or favour if public interest is taken
There is no such thing called foot path in cities of India due to
various reason like narrow roads,encroachment of various kinds,bad maintenance etc.-the only solution is not to pay taxes enmass!It is nearly impossible for senior citizens to walk on the streets.
There is a surge in automobile sector leaves pedestrians in casuality.Roads are widened to accomadate vehicles and encroachers make use of available foot path forces hapless pedestrians walks on thick moving traffic leads to accidents.No government agencies gave priority for pedestrians not only in chennai but also in other indian cities.We need a strong sepcification and rule to make foot path free for pedestrians.In fact this allows people to allow to walk in small distances with pleasure there by improving their health.Government should understand that providing more paths leads to improve people health.The present laws does not provide enough measures to deal the current developments need to be revisited by law makers.Thanks Hindu for publishing this much needed issues.
Please Email the Editor