Urban renewal - walk the talk

I am an avid walker. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to walk to the bank, the post office or even the market when the weather permits. Being used to Lutyen's Delhi, where the streets have a thick tree cover and are blessed with wide footpaths (designed and executed by our colonial masters), one walked all the time, to run errands, attend to everyday requirements or merely for the pleasure of walking.
However, in Visakhapatnam I do not walk, not even to the grocer just round the corner. For, the city is not a walker-friendly city. There are no �walkable' or �safe' pavements where one can saunter freely. Even where an apology for one does exist, it is either taken over by a tea stall, a makeshift kiosk or a motor mechanic's shop. I am scared that I may be knocked down by the errant traffic, as were many acquaintances of mine, for merely walking on the city's roads.
Further, there is no tree cover to provide you shade. All told, walking on the streets of Visakhapatnam is not an attractive proposition. So one can't walk. Can I take my car to run my errands? Parking is a problem, so I can't drive. Can the younger lot bike to schools, colleges or play fields? Not advisable at all; that very healthy exercise can only be indulged in at the beach, in the wee hours of the day. Thank god for that.
Is there at least a good transport system? The answer is a firm negative. So what do we end up with? Choked roads, heavy vehicular pollution and pent up frustration. And, we are on our way to becoming a smart city! The science of town planning, which is perfected and executed to the last detail elsewhere in the world, is sadly primitive in our city. Successive city planners have not thought of fundamental things like tree planting, nor have they provided for the pedestrian, the common man, the young, the old and the not so well to do, who use cycles for commuting.
That being the case in our city, let us see how the pedestrians and cyclists are faring in other developing countries. The case of Bogota, Columbia, which faces worse problems than Vizag comes to mind. Bogota has a seven million population against our one million. It faces many similar problems like us � the congested inner city, haphazard lanes, urban confusion, traffic snarls and extreme poverty. The city was transformed and became a model for the rest of the world when a visionary called Enrique Peñelosa was elected as the mayor of the city, from 1998 to 2001. Within three short years of his tenure, Peñelosa made paradigm shifts in city planning and transport policy. In the model that he promoted, he gave priority to sidewalks, bicycle paths, pedestrian streets, greenways, vehicle-free streets and open spaces, apart from improving slums, building schools, nurseries, libraries and hundreds of parks.
When questioned about his emphasis on pedestrian spaces and cycle paths, he said, "I don't think protected bicycle ways are a cute architectural feature. They are a right, just as sidewalks are." He further added, "Do we dare create a transport system giving priority to the needs of the poor? Or are we really trying to solve the traffic jams of the upper income people? That really is the true issue that exists." Penelosa built more than 350 km of protected bicycle ways in Bogota. To him, a good transport system and the facilities provided to the common man are merely reflective of the kind of democracy you live in.
These days, Peñalosa works as a consultant on urban strategy, advising officials in cities all over the world how to build sustainable cities that can not only survive but thrive in the future. He is the president of the board of directors of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, an organisation promoting sustainable and equitable transportation worldwide. He is available for consultations. As the Bible says, ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find (the right advice).
Another interesting model comes from the biking-crazy country of Netherlands. My discovery of the Netherlander's love for biking started with a joke. New to The Hague, I found hundreds of paths bearing an identical name, �Fietspad.' (I knew �pad' meant �path' in Dutch.) Puzzled, I asked a Dutch friend why so many paths bore the same name. My friend burst into laughter and explained that a �fietspad' was a cycle path. It is no exaggeration to say that there are more bikes in Netherlands than humans. The Dutch, one of the richest and most developed in the world, were traditionally great bikers. The flat terrain and the Dutch love for physical activity made biking a national passion.
Post World War II, when car ownership rose exponentially, vehicles in the busy and cramped inner city streets became a hazard to human lives. It was then that a movement started to keep cars out of streets and to make large parts of the city walker and biker friendly. Further, with the Middle Eastern oil crisis of 1973, when oil-producing countries stopped exports to the US and Western Europe, the Dutch government realised how unsustainable their dependence on imported oil was and how vulnerable their economy. With that realisation, the Dutch government decided to revive the country's biking tradition and started investing heavily in improving cycling infrastructure, and also moving away from the "car-centric road-building policies", being pursued elsewhere. Today you see more bikes in Dutch cities than motorcars. Whole streets are made vehicle free and available to both cyclists and pedestrians and, children, in particular.
At the present moment, as we Vizagites are convulsing with excitement at the prospect of going �smart,' may we look at models suitable to us instead of willy-nilly being pushed to Singapore, Hong Kong or some other equally unsuitable model? We are a small city with just about a million population, we can truly make ours a people friendly, green, clean and happy city. We have celebrated urban planners in the country that we can put to use. However, since we are so busy shopping around for foreign models, is it a good idea to find something that suits our needs and tweak it further to suit our particular problems?
Creating cycle lanes and pedestrian paths will reduce traffic on the roads, decrease pollution caused by vehicles and also encourage our citizens to work off those extra pounds of unnecessary flab that they are accumulating. By discouraging vehicular movement, we can also reduce our petroleum import bill, which is like a millstone around the country's neck. Further, unless we make city renewal inclusive, with special attention to the slums, we cannot aspire to be a truly smart city.
(The writer is a heritage and environmental activist. She can be reached at ranisarma2010@gmail.com)