[sustran] Re: Planning for accessibility in Indian cities ...

[Madhav Badami, Prof.]

Hello Sudhir, and greetings all,

Inspired by your earlier Sustran posting in March on the sorry state (and utter disregard) of pedestrian infrastructure in Bangalore, and by my own harrowing experience as a pedestrian in that and other Indian
cities, I wrote an article titled "Urban Transport: Accesibility for All
is the Way Forward", which the Times of India carried in their Bangalore
edition on April 1 (I was pleasantly surprised that they did, given their strong car-highway-metro bias). I posted a message on Sustran last week with the Times of India piece attached. But because the file size was large (the article included a photo I took of pedestrians stuck in the middle of traffic on
Bannerghatta Road, off of which I was staying in Bangalore), it was not sent out to the Sustran mailing list. Luckily, I have discovered that my article (without the photo) has been featured by the Urban Study Group. The web link is below:

http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/2008-April/003058.html <https://exchange.mcgill.ca/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/2008-April/003058.html> 

 

Comments are welcome. 

 

While I was in India, I also hammered home the importance of pedestrian accessibility in a
presentation I made to the recently constituted Bangalore Metropolitan
Land Transport Authority (BMLTA), and in a public event on urban
transport in Chennai. I guess what we need is for lots of us to
persistently make our case (in the media and other forums), and hope for
the best.

Madhav

 
************************************************************************

"As for the future, your task is not to foresee, but to enable it."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
 
Madhav G. Badami, PhD
School of Urban Planning and McGill School of Environment
McGill University
Macdonald-Harrington Building
815 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, QC, H3A 2K6, Canada
 
Phone: 514-398-3183 (Work); 514-486-2370 (Home)
Fax: 514-398-8376; 514-398-1643
URLs: www.mcgill.ca/urbanplanning
www.mcgill.ca/mse
e-mail: madhav.badami at mcgill.ca

________________________________

From: sustran-discuss-bounces+madhav.g.badami=mcgill.ca at list.jca.apc.org on behalf of sudhir gota
Sent: Mon 4/28/2008 2:31 AM
To: sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org
Subject: [sustran] Re ; BRTS in delhi





Dear all,

I would also try to pitch in- though a
bit late,

Bangalore plans to spend 42.44% of its
entire infrastructure investment for next 16 years on Metros.
Pedestrians have been alloted a mere 0.6% of total investment.

Bangalore is due for elections and
Metro has found its place in couple of parties manifestos.

Being on the other side of fence for
long and working on several "Infrastructure Development Projects" in India,
had never seen even a single  project being  economically and financially unviable.

Regards
Sudhir




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