Post-lockdown guidelines to create cycle-friendly cities

10th June 2020 by

The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a blow to urban transportation systems, forcing cities to rethink their mobility patterns. WHO has recommended cycling and walking whenever feasible. During these times, cycling has emerged as a safe, affordable, and accessible mode of travel that can support public transport. As restrictions ease further and physical distancing becomes the norm, ensuring safe cycling is important to all Indian cities. Cities must use this opportunity to reimagine their streets and provide supporting infrastructure – by creating pop-up cycle lanes, expanding cycle-sharing systems, and conducting community-driven campaigns. These temporary measures can catalyze long-term change towards creating cycling-friendly cities.

ITDP India Programme has put together short term recommendations for cities to ensure safe cycling on the streets. The recommendations guide cities towards quick and easy interventions to ensure a green recovery from COVID-19 by championing sustainable mobility.

Compiled by: Achuthan TD, Aditi Subramanian, Aswathy Dilip, Bala Nagendran M, Parin Visariya

Here is our resource on Creating Safe Streets for all, that includes short-term recommendations that help cities to create safer streets for people.

Safety Audits and Walking Assessments around Bus Terminals in Delhi

24th September 2019 by

The report scores the bus terminals of Delhi on a scale of 0 to 3 in terms of women’s safety and also provides policy recommendations on ways to improve safety.

People Near Transit, Transit Near People

17th May 2019 by

The People Near Transit (PNT) report establishes the levels of urban transit services in Pune Metropolitan Region and the accessibility gaps that affects its residents.

The Bikeshare Planning Guide

22nd August 2018 by Leave a Comment

A resource for cities to design, plan, implement and measure the success of a bikeshare system

Over the past decade, bikeshare has contributed significantly to sustainable mobility in cities: providing first-last kilometer solutions, replacing short trips made by car, and offering a unique way for residents and visitors to explore their surroundings, among other benefits. As bikeshare continues to evolve- integrating pedal assist e-bikes, dockless bikes, and multi-operator models- cities have to understand the opportunities and risks such innovations present, as well as how to define success and measure system performance over time.

The Bikeshare Planning Guide provides in-depth guidance to city officials, practitioners and other stakeholders about planning and implementing a successful bikeshare system. The Guide encourages cities to position bikeshare as a critical piece of their transportation network, and plan- and expand- systems that prioritize transit integration, equity, and a high-quality user experience.

[Webinar] How Can Indian Cities Construct a Future for Walking

21st August 2018 by Leave a Comment

Description: In this webinar, the speakers discussed on how Indian cities can construct safe and attractive footpaths that are accessible by all. This webinar gives a brief introduction to our publication – Footpath Fix – that provides guidance on footpath construction details, especially that of different utilities.

Many Indian cities have begun to acknowledge the fundamental role of walking in everyday life but are stuck at getting the details right. This short guide is more of a cheat-sheet for urban designers, municipal engineers, and contractors on how to implement footpaths in complex urban environments. Everyone who has seen it is raving about it.

About the speakers:

Nashwa Naushad is a Research Associate – Urban Development with ITDP India and works out of the Chennai office.
Pranjal Kulkarni is a Research Associate – Urban Development with ITDP India and he works out of the Pune office.

The webinar recording can be found here.

Footpath Fix

27th July 2018 by Leave a Comment

The Footpath Fix is a step-by-step guide on footpath construction detailing for urban designers, municipal engineers, and contractors. Cities across India now acknowledge that walking plays a fundamental role in everyday life. Thereupon, good quality footpaths must be provided to make walking safe and attractive.

Basic footpath design standards such as the optimal height, adequate width, continuous and obstacle-free surface are detailed in the first volume of the Footpath Series – Footpath Design.

Attention to construction details, especially that of different utilities is articulated in this second volume – Footpath Fix. Several footpath projects have failed due to improper construction and execution; thus, this guide aims to highlight the steps, in a chronological order, from pre-excavation to above-ground construction. It also features necessary precautions, drawing from experience on-ground, that must be taken into consideration at each stage of construction.

[Webinar] IRC Guidelines on Urban Road Network Planning

31st May 2018 by Leave a Comment

ITDP India Programme is part of the H8 Committee on Urban Roads and Streets, that was constituted in the year 2015 to prepare street design guidelines for urban roads.

Watch the ITDP team talk about:

Planning and Development of Urban Roads and Streets (Sonal Shah, Senior Programme Manager, ITDP)
IRC BRT Guidelines (Pranjali Deshpande-Agashe, Programme Manager, ITDP)
IRC 70: Guidelines for Regulation and Control of Mixed Traffic (Parin Visariya, Research Associate – Urban Development, ITDP)

The webinar provides information on road hierarchy and network planning, pedestrian and cycling facilities, on-street parking management, and BRT guidelines.

The webinar recording can be found here.

Five Ways to Win at Dockless Bikeshare

22nd May 2018 by Leave a Comment

Dockless bikeshare, a mode of transportation that emerged in China only four years ago, needs to be regulated and integrated into urban mass transit systems rather than exist as a separate private entity to reach its potential, according to a new policy brief from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP).

ITDP has outlined five key elements for a successful dockless bikeshare system, and has found that a number of cities have already embraced these best practices.

The policy brief and accompanying publicity materials identify five key components of any system: Five Ways to Win at Dockless Bikeshare. A growing number of cities have prospered by implementing these elements, while other cities have experienced more disruption than smooth travels due to minimal oversight of dockless bikeshare. For example, without clearly communicated guidelines on how best to park the bicycles, dockless bikes have raised ire for blocking rights of way and other public spaces.

[Webinar] Municipal Finance: Financing Sustainable Transport

15th May 2018 by Leave a Comment

About the speaker: Dr Ravikant Joshi – Team Leader -Technical Support Unit to the National Urban Livelihoods Mission – Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs

Dr. Ravikant Joshi presently works for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs as a Team Leader in the Technical Support Group to National Urban Livelihood Mission. He is the former Chief Accounts Officer of Vadodara Municipal Corporation with more than 35 years of experience. He has been responsible for the conceptualisation, design and implementation of Municipal Financial, Budgetary and Accounting System Reforms at the Corporation.

He is a sought-after guest lecturer at various Institution and Universities for topics ranging from urban-municipal finance, urban finance, urban governance, strategic urban management, to urban development studies. Dr Joshi has written over 30 research papers on urban governance that have been publish in various journals and seminars.

Description: The webinar explores alternate methods of financing sustainable transport initiatives in Indian cities – such as municipal bonds, urban transport funds, land value capture through public-private partnerships etc. It highlights the present scenario of revenue tools, identifies gaps in the current set-up, and provides an analysis of various alternative methods of financing, available for our cities.

The webinar recording can be found here.

[Webinar] #WomenOnTheMove: Women and Transport in Indian Cities

6th April 2018 by Leave a Comment

The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy and Safetipin released a first-of-its-kind policy brief on Women and Transport in Indian Cities in 2017. ITDP hosted a webinar on March 20, 2018 to introduce the policy brief and discuss the gendered dimensions of transport and employment in the transport sector in Indian cities. The emphasis was on proposed urban transport indicators and service level benchmarks (SLBs) for comprehensive mobility plans, recommendations to improve women’s modal shares and experiences of walking, cycling, public and intermediate public transport, and engendering public transport authorities. In addition to SLBs and recommendations, the role of ministries and departments in mainstreaming gender was also discussed.

The webinar recording can be found here. Download the presentation here.