For whom did Chennai Corporation widen pavements - pedestrians or car owners?

CHENNAI: Though authorities have taken steps to make Chennai a pedestrian friendly city, several of the recently widened footpaths here are inaccessible to people, especially to differently abled persons, because residents park their cars and two-wheelers on the pavements.
The differently abled people on Saturday launched a campaign to sensitize the public to the importance of keeping the pavements vehicles-free.The Disability Rights Alliance (DRA), a group working for the rights of the disabled, launched an awareness campaign at Second Avenue in Besant Nagar where the footpath had been recently widened.
These pavements were made 1.8m to 4m wide to allow a wheelchair, and ramps were provided for the same. However, the ramps have made it easier for motorists to get on to the pavement and ride along. The pavements are so wide that even a BMW car was parked on the KB Dasan Road in Besant Nagar, said Smitha Sadasivan of the DRA.
“There is a hospital and restaurant on this road which allows their visitors to park on the pavements. This is an effort to develop civic sense and responsibility in people. Whoever is driving or parking on the pavements must be penalized,” she said.
The campaigners requested residents, education institutions, private establishments and the public not to park their vehicles on the pavements that had been widened recently by Chennai Corporation.
The door-to- door awareness campaign will end on December 3 -- the International Day for Persons with Disabilities -- when the DRA activists form a human chain.
The corporation has constructed 26 disabled- friendly footpaths and another 29 are under implementation.
The DRA audited four of them -- 2nd Avenue in Besant Nagar, College Road, Police Commissioner’s Office Road and KB Dasan Road.
“Though we have suggested the corporation to include tactile features, they are present only around trees on the pavements,” said Sadasivan.
“Colour contrasts, which help those with low vision identify differences in levels, were also missing. The ramps were too steep,” she added.