I am not sure if this has been posted before on Praja, did some searching and could not find it, hence i am posting it.
I found an interesting video on the problems faced by pedestrians in Pune. This is very much applicable to any Indian city. I would rate this as one of the best (& captivating) short movies/documentaries I have seen in my entire life.
Video via this blog post:
http://reinventingtransport.blogspot.com/2010/06/indias-years-of-walking-dangerously.html
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Comments
Great Video !
Blrpraj - Couldn't agree with you more. Hema Gadgil's pleading voice, raising serious concerns for pedestrians summarizes the pathetic state of affairs in Pune. The condition is no different almost everywhere else in India. The link you provide is quite a repository for many interesting articles - thanks to Paul Barter.
Even the weathier cities of the west, with cars dominating their livelihoods even more than here are changing gears drastically in preference to cleaner, healthier ways of commuting & are concentrating on developing superior pedestrian & bicycle facilities -- some examples :
Copenhagen, Denmark: Over 35% residents commute by bike & has probably the best bicycle infrastructure with dedicated bike lanes almost everywhere & bicycle-friendly intersections.
New York /Manhattan : The 2009 Broadway boulevard project created new pedestrian zones (Times Square, Herald Square, Madison Square, etc) & reclaimed huge areas from roads /traffic areas (I think it was some 45,000 sq.m of space - over 11 acres). Despite this, congestion decreased on most surrounding streets & traffic injuries were reported to have fallen by over 60%, pedestrian injuries by over 30% ! Broadway has people converging to enjoy cafés, concerts, art exhibitions, yoga classes, snowball fights, or just to watch the fun, similar to traditional old european cities like Rome or Paris !
The story is the same in Amsterdam, Paris, cities in UK, etc. Developing country cities are just as futuristic - Mexico city & many cities in China such as Hangzhou have very high share of bicycle & pedestrian trips.
Despite the Metro & BRT in Delhi that can greatly assist in promoting clean transport, things remain awful on the streets with cars dominating. Hope the arrival of the Metro in bangalore changes things here - citizens thinking has to change - demanding car facilities must be ended. I'm glad that road expansions are hitting roadblocks now !
Embedded video in the post, must see
Thanks for sharing, have put the video in the main post itself to make it a little easy for all to see this very nice video.