Praja meet to plan pedestrianization project

22 April 2009 - 10:38am — silkboard

Start: 23 Apr 2009 16:00

End: 23 Apr 2009 17:00

Timezone: Asia/Calcutta

Thursday, Lalbagh West Gate, 4 pm

Let us make use of election day holiday to plan next steps on pedestrianization project. Refer back to recent discussions on pedestrianization possibilities for Commercial Street and Brigade Road stretch. Looks like there is enough interest and enough legs available to take this forward from mere discussion.

Confirmed attendance: das, silkboard, psaram42.

All are welcome, but remember, our meetings are to plan action. Discussions are reserved only for the website.

Comments

I will be there. 4 pm

silkboard - 22 Apr 2009 - 10:44am

Created this separate event post because not everyone may have read comments buried deep in the commercial street/brigade road posts.

Come Praje, let us do this small tangible and doable thing. Whether we manage to get some areas in CBD pedestianized or not, that comes later. The experience of doing such project is what we should look forward. At a minimum, we'd learn a lot via hearing different viewpoints and word of approval and disapproval from various people and authorities.

Remember - most of us do all this part time. So such projects can be successful only if more people share the workload.

Can't make it at 4:00

s_yajaman - 22 Apr 2009 - 10:59am

SB,

I have a dentist appointment at 3:00; might go on till 4:00. And I live 30 mins from Lal Bagh West Gate. 5:00 to 6:00 would have been good. Weekday evenings is not good for me in any case.

Srivathsa

Drive safe. It is not just the car maker which can recall its product.

I hope I have been counted.already.

psaram42 - 22 Apr 2009 - 12:18pm

I will be there at Lalbagh West Gate, the usual spot at 4 PM on Thursday the 23rd April 2009 .

PSA

I'll be there

das - 22 Apr 2009 - 1:53pm

I'll be there 4 PM.

Two other Praja members Vijay and Suhas too will be there (confirmed on phone). Vijay is an architect and I think Suhas too.

So confirmed attendance : silkboard, psaram42, vijay, suhas, das, srivathsa (coming late).

Srivathsa, will be great if you can advance your dentist thing a little.

i am going to try and be

jennypinto - 22 Apr 2009 - 3:43pm

i am going to try and be there too.

jenny

lightness of being

evening showers!!!

Arun - 22 Apr 2009 - 5:53pm

...since it is raining for the past few days...can this meeting be preponed? i know it will be difficult for some people...may be you can consider this suggestion...

My thoughts are with you

asj - 23 Apr 2009 - 3:41am

Can't make it for obvious reasons, but do check this out to get a glimpse in to how Times Square is changing. http://www.pricetags.ca/pricetags/pricetags107.pdf

Best wishes

ASJ

www.driving-india.blogspot.com

see you all

silkboard - 23 Apr 2009 - 3:46pm

leaving now, be there by 4.

Today's meeting.

rs - 23 Apr 2009 - 8:31pm

So I was wondering what happened at the meeting. I'm sorry I could not be there as I am out of the country for a few months.

Ramesh

The meeting - summary

das - 24 Apr 2009 - 1:33pm

There were 9 of us at Lal Bagh West Gate yesterday.

We decided What is to be done. The How will come down the line.The aim of the project will be to Make Commercial Street fully pedestian-only (no parking or passing through). The Shoppers and shop owners both want this. The key driver of the project will be the Shop Owners' Association. Praja's job will be to act as the facilitator, to enable this to happen by coordinating with various agencies like the BBMP, Traffic Police and BMTC.

These are the main aims of the project:1. Make the street an open air shopping mall - the preferred destination for shoppers and a tourist destination.2. Promote pedestrianization - get people used to the idea of walking, get them de-addicted from private transport, get them addicted to walking on vehicle-free roads.3. Promote public transport by providing convenient buses to the street.

The next task is to meet the Shop owners' association. This will happen over the next 3-4 days. Info on the meeting will be posted as an Event.

A nice Meeting

psaram42 - 24 Apr 2009 - 3:53pm

It was well attended and disussed meeting. The BRTC bus stops near the commertial area are to be negotiated with BRTC. The places for car park also needs to be finalised.

PSA

Comml St - A Good Beginning

Naveen - 24 Apr 2009 - 4:18pm

Commercial street is a good place to begin pedestrianization of streets in the city. As discussed during the meet, in due course, this initiative can be spread to many other streets & areas too. Some of the potential areas could be as follows :

1) Brigade road, between MG rd-Cauvery emporium & War memorial-St.Patricks complex.

2) Streets adjacent Jayanagar shopping complex, except for the road in front of Bus station /TTMC.

3) Malleswaram Sampige rd - between Market & Circle /Underpass.

4) Avenue road /Chikpet /Gandhinagar - narrow streets.

5) DVG rd, Basavanagudi.

This list is not complete & there could be many more areas where pedestrianization could be considered.

Survey of shoppers - report

das - 24 Apr 2009 - 8:05pm

The survey was conducted in January. This is what it revealed.

Of the total number of shoppers, 70 % prefer a pedestrian-only street.
Of the people walking into the street, 92 % prefer a pedestrian-only street.
76 % of shoppers come on foot, 14 % in cars, 10 % on 2-wheelers.
Of the people coming on foot, 12 % come by bus, 31 % by auto, and 57 % by their own vehicle (and park it on Kamaraj Rd., opposite Safina Plaza, or in Shivajinagar bus stand).81 cars are parked on the street at any given time, corresponding to 218 people. Most of these cars park for 2 hours. They belong to shopppers, not shop owners.

Some heartening statistics

11 % of the people come to the street by bus.
30 % of the people arriving at the Jumma Masjid entrance come by bus (since this entrance is close to Shivajinagar bus stand).
People who arrived at the street on foot said they did not mind parking their car elsewhere and walking down at all.

Some serious anomalies

Commercial Street is not a thoroughfare - people come here only to shop, not to travel from one place to another. It should primarily cater to pedestrians, not vehicles. However, only 32 % of the road space is available to pedestrians. Automobiles carry only 24 % of the people coming in, but hog 68 % of the road space.
42 % of the road space is used for parking, by just 2 % of the people. It costs these people just a measly Rs. 20 for 2 hours to inconvenience the rest of the 98 %. Half of this 42 % is used by slow moving cars that drop off shoppers and crawl along waiting for parking space to open up.
Although cars are supposed to be parked on only one side, they are illegally parked on the other side too.

Other statistics

9200 people enter the street between 5 and 7 PM on a Sunday, by foot or automobiles.
People entering the street on foot – what percentage of them come by auto, own vehicle and bus respectively.
Kamaraj Rd. entrance : 30% - auto, 62 % -own vehicle and 8 % - bus
Dispensary Rd. entrance : 29%- auto, 64 % - own vehicle and 7 % - bus
Jumma Masjid Rd. entrance : 36%- auto, 34 % - own vehicle and 30 % - bus.
The average number of passengers per car and per 2-wheeler coming into the street is 2.7 and 1.75 respectively.

Here's the full report http://www.slideshare.net/das_gv/commercial-st-survey-report

Here's a presentation made to sell the idea to the shop owners' association. Never used, because they are already sold on it.

http://www.slideshare.net/das_gv/commercial-street

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