Prioritising Streets for People: Reimagining Indian Cities

3rd November 2020 by admin

The Smart Cities Mission launched another national green recovery initiative—the Streets for People Challenge—with an aim to make Indian cities pedestrian-friendly, lively, and safe. The Challenge was launched by Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in a virtual event conducted on 11 September, 2020, and attended by key city officials, partner agencies, civil society organisations, and other stakeholders. 113 cities across the country have registered to transform their streets.

What is the Streets for People Challenge?

Across the world, COVID-19 has changed the way streets are used, highlighting the importance of streets for inclusive mobility, but also as public spaces for recreation, mental health, and to enhance the liveability of a city. The Streets for People Challenge follows on the heels of the India Cycles4Change Challenge to bridge this crucial gap in the way cities are envisioned and create streets that are safe, healthy, and happy, through quick, innovative, low-cost measures. The Challenge is an initiative of the Smart Cities Mission, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), in partnership with the ITDP India Programme and supported by the Fit India Movement and Swachh Bharat Mission. It is open to all cities under the Smart Cities Mission, capital cities of States/Union Territories, and cities with a population of over 5 lakh population.

Launch of the Streets for People Challenge

Stages of the Challenge

The Streets for People Challenge will be conducted in two stages. Stage One of the Challenge requires cities to test at least one pilot intervention, comprising a flagship public space project and a liveable neighbourhood, along with the development of a conceptual city-wide scale-up strategy. 11 cities will be selected for Stage Two to further scale-up their transformation. Drawing cues from locations like the Pedestrian Plaza in Chennai and the Golden Temple Heritage Street in Amritsar, the flagship projects are imagined around markets, retail areas, transit hubs, and other prominent places in the city. Cities should also choose neighbourhoods, which can range from mixed-income areas, resettlement colonies, low-income neighbourhoods, and others. In these areas, cities can create pedestrian-friendly or pedestrian-only streets, convert parking spaces to pop-up parks, revitalise dead spaces, and create walking links between large urban blocks.

To ensure well-designed pilot interventions, cities will roll out a design competition for students and professionals across the country. The competition will be launched with a design brief and entries will be evaluated by local officials, citizens, experts, and other stakeholders. To place the community at the heart of the Challenge, the design competition will include a multi-step process, where citizens can take part in discussions and vote for the best entry through a community jury. Cities will also focus on citizen participation through activities such as events and campaigns.

Cities will participate in a virtual Streets for People Festival in February 2021. Following this, 11 cities will be selected for Stage Two. In this stage, cities will commence implementation of their scale-up plan and work towards a long-term strategy to prioritise walkable and liveable streetscapes. Throughout the Challenge, the ITDP India Programme will provide remote assistance by sharing knowledge resources, conducting online training workshops, and facilitating peer-to-peer interactions between cities.

Taking the first step

The 113 registered cities have already kickstarted the process through the Online Workshop 1, which was conducted on 1 October, 2020, by the ITDP India Programme. Key officials from Amritsar, Chennai, Delhi, and Udaipur presented the learnings from the development of various pedestrian-friendly spaces in their cities. As the officials spoke about the transformation of spaces in these cities, they emphasised key factors such as community feedback sessions and tactical measures to ensure successful interventions. The session was led forward by the ITDP India Programme through a presentation that focussed on a detailed look at the Challenge process for the cities — expanding on their next steps to engage with their communities and begin the design process.

To facilitate this collaborative transformation, cities are now calling upon passionate individuals to support their city in coordinating, volunteering, documenting, and sponsoring various elements of the Challenge. The city will closely work with these diverse group of individuals to efficiently manage the Challenge in multiple aspects, such as data collection, media coverage, and inclusive participation.

Streets for People, By People

Cities are now in the process of identifying their pilot sites, building support from the community, and gathering momentum through the ‘Open Streets’ Campaign. The campaign aims to showcase a glimpse into the Challenge, by opening streets to pedestrians, cyclists, and other non-motorised transport users. By asking citizens to nominate streets for the campaign and then organising events to bring them together, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Kakinada, and many others are truly embracing this cause. The ITDP India Programme is proud to support the Smart Cities Mission in this national initiative and guide Indian cities to reimagine a future around the needs of people, not cars.

Written by Aditi Subramanian

Edited by Avishek Jha

To support your city for the Streets for People Challenge, register here – https://smartnet.niua.org/indiastreetchallenge/support-your-city-2/

This article is part of a series of articles on the Streets for People Challenge.

Pune lights the way for child-friendly cities

12th December 2019 by admin

Pune is leading the country in creating a city that is inclusive of the needs of infants, toddlers and their caregivers. The ITDP India Programme, with the support of the Bernard van Leer Foundation (BvLF), initiated work on a programme with the Pune Municipal Corporation that aims at ‘Transforming Urban Mobility to Nurture Early Childhood Development in India’. The initiative was launched by the Additional Municipal Commissioner of the Pune Municipal Corporation on the 9th of December 2019.

“Are our cities designed for children?”

This is an easy question to answer. Streets are designed as corridors for motor vehicles and very rarely even have safe walking space for adults, let alone children. People have to compete with cars and two-wheelers for space to move through the cities. Very little infrastructure is designed keeping in mind the needs of young children.

Designing for children with their limited range of travel and slower pace, can simultaneously address the needs of other vulnerable groups such as the elderly and disabled. Then, should we not be prioritising the needs of the youngest among us while building our cities, ensuring that children can travel around our cities freely, safely, and without fear?

This brings us to another important question, “How can our cities be designed for children?”

A question that was on everybody’s minds at the launch of the initiative aimed at ‘Transforming Urban Mobility to Nurture Early Childhood Development in India’ under the Bernard van Leer Foundation’s (BvLF) global Urban95 initiative for children between the ages of 0-5 years and their caregivers. Launching the initiative in Pune on the 9th of December, Rubal Agarwal, Additional Commissioner of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) said, “Pune is a pioneering city in many ways and we welcome initiatives such as Urban95 to transform urban areas and make them children and caregivers-friendly. We are proud to launch the project in Pune in collaboration with ITDP and BvLF and look forward to participating in nurturing early childhood development.”

*Rubal Agarwal, Additional Commissioner- PMC,* launching the initiative

Speaking at the launch, Shreya Gadepalli, South Asia Programme Lead, ITDP, presented the vision for the city and the initiative, “In India and across many fast-developing countries, the ever-increasing investments are not focused enough on incorporating the needs of infants, toddlers, and caregivers. Under this programme and with BvLF’s support, we hope that cities like Pune become lighthouses for other cities in Maharashtra and the country to incorporate the needs of young children and families in their mobility policies, plans, and projects.”

The event was also attended by government officials from the Roads and Family Planning Departments. Representatives from local organisations such as MASHAL, Centre for Environment Education, Parisar, Prasanna Desai Architects, and Shelter Associates suggested various ways for Pune to become a child-friendly city. The discussion brought up many important factors and considerations for the initiative to focus on.

The presentation session was followed by a panel discussion with Shreya Gadepalli, Rushda Majeed – Country Representative for India BvLF, Cecilia Vaca Jones – Progamme Director BvLF, Dinkar Gojare- Executive Engineer, PMC Roads Department, and Milind Khedkar- Medical Officer, PMC Family Planning Department, and moderated by Aswathy Dilip, Senior Programme Manager, ITDP India Programme.

The panelists and members of the audience had an active discussion that brought up many important factors and considerations for the initiative to focus on. The panellists emphasised the need for all developments to be done with a holistic and integrated approach. Policies and guidelines are necessary, but it is also the responsibility of citizens to participate in the process, demand, and ensure the maintenance of facilities used by the children. Members of the audience also highlighted the importance of scaling up the initiatives to the city level through quick steps like Tactical Urbanism interventions.

*Panel discussion on creating safe and inclusive cities for children*

Speaking about the factors to ensure scaling up of the initiative, Cecilia said, “It is vital to have continuous documentation of what is working and what is not, and a good communication strategy to scale up the work at the state and national level. Understanding the financing of such initiatives is also very important for a long term engagement.”

Speaking about the importance of safe and high quality urban mobility to ensure the wellbeing of children and their caregivers, Rushda Majeed said, “Babies and toddlers are dependent on their primary caregiver, be it mothers, fathers, elder siblings or grandparents, to get around. If walking conditions and public transport are poor, they are less likely to be able to go out with their parents and grandparents, have uncomfortable or long commutes, be exposed to unsafe environments, and have limited options for physical activities.”

Mobility policies that focus on ITC would equip decision makers to invest in sustainable mobility – walking, cycling, and public transport – with specific interventions and improvements dedicated for early childhood development to increase safety, convenience, and vibrancy of public spaces, and improve access to childhood services such as health care, education, and play.

*The event received support from representatives of organisations in Pune*

With several developments to make the city more inclusive, Pune is already on its way to becoming a “City for all”. Highlighting the work done in Pune, Dinkar Gojare said, “The PMC has already adopted the Urban Street Design Guidelines, a “Pedestrian First” policy, and implemented several road safety improvement projects. 100 km of street redesign is already on its way. A Children’s traffic Club has been initiated, along with other place making projects. Open spaces are available but they are misused. We should begin with freeing up about 25% of them for projects that ensure early childhood development.”

The programme that is now set in motion will build on this work and see Pune transform itself into India’s first safe and accessible city for infants, toddlers and their caregivers and a model for other cities to emulate. The ITDP India team and BvLF will support PMC to make this dream a reality.

With a clear vision and people’s support, Pune is building a future where cities are designed for children. After all, a city for children is a city for all!

Written by Keshav Suryanarayanan

Creating Safer Cities: ITDP’s partnership with Janki Devi Memorial College

22nd March 2018 by admin

Written by Sonal Shah

“ITDP-JDMC partnership has been extremely rewarding in fortifying the initiative towards making Delhi safe for women. The audits at the bus terminals conducted under the guidance of the former have contributed immensely to the understanding of safety issues at the grass root level in cities.”- Ruby Bhardwaj, a member of faculty at Janki Devi Memorial College (JDMC)

Transport – be it streets, buses, metro-rail, rickshaws – is not only infrastructure that we use for daily movement, but also constitutes our image of the city and how accessible or inaccessible it is – depending on our social identity.

To explore the intersections of Gender and Transport, in October 2017, ITDP co-taught a course on ‘Safe and Inclusive Cities’ at the Janki Devi Memorial College (or JDMC). Under the ‘Urban Planning and Infrastructure’ module, ITDP highlighted the dimensions of gendered travel such as trip chaining, forced mobility, forced immobility, and mobility of care. Trip-chaining and the mobility of care look at women’s travel patterns, as they make multiple stops on their way to a destination for caretaking trips (such as accompanying a dependant to school, clinics, shopping for the household etc). Forced immobility is a consequence of violence and insecurity in transport, which constrains their movement. Introducing these concepts to enabled the young women of JDMC college to evaluate their daily paths through the lens of walkability, safety and comfort.

As a part of the course, the students walked as a group and mapped the street from JDMC to Karolbagh Metro Station, the residential streets in the vicinity and Gangaram Hospital Road. They highlighted how encroached, discontinuous and inadequate footpaths forced them to walk on the carriageway, how high boundary walls along deserted stretches became places where men urinated, how ‘dark spots’ due to poor street lighting and inactive stretches increased unsafe walking conditions, how drinking tea at a vendor was uncomfortable because they were “looked” at by male bystanders or how they altered their walking path to take a longer route or avoid an unsafe stretch.

ITDP staff presenting the intersections of Gender and Transport

ITDP staff discussing the mapping exercise and proposals on how streets could be made safer with JDMC students

JDMC students mapping the streets around their college.

This short exercise has been followed by a second workshop in March 2018, where the same students are now conducting walkability assessments and safety audits using the Safetipin application within 500m around bus terminals in Delhi. This will culminate in a report rating the quality of walking infrastructure and the built environment and suggest concrete recommendations for creating gender responsive streets. Sonali Vyas from Safetipin conducted a training session on how to use the application, followed by pilot test audits.

Our preliminary findings reveal that road safety, quality of walking infrastructure, street lighting, gender diversity are consistently emerging as issues in accessing the bus terminals across Delhi. While the comprehensive findings will be shared in April, this exercise reflects ITDP’s endeavour to engage students (in this case, young sociology female students) in not only understanding gendered transport theoretically, but becoming aware of how accessibility can be enabled or hindered and the critical role that infrastructure plays in it.

Right: ITDP staff explaining how to conduct a safety audit on the field.

We would like to acknowledge the students and faculty of Janki Devi Memorial College and Safetipin in this joint initiative.