[sustran] Re: Pedestrian Budget

[Sujit Patwardhan]

7 March 2010



Dear Sudhir,
We are doing an analysis of the PMC Budget - passed a few days back. The
percentage of all Pedestrian and non motorised infrastructure is very small
though by including totally unnecessary and horrendous structures like the
Sky-Walk (another name for Pedestrian Over bridges where pedestrians are
made to climb up many steps) under the head -  "pedestrian facilities"  the
budgets gives a misleading picture. These Sky-Walks just like most Flyovers
are nothing but opportunities for high kick backs and white elephant
projects for the agencies and contractors apart from acting as one more stab
in the back for pedestrians whose miserable life (having to walk on most
roads with poor condition of pavements) is already so painful that it is not
right to make him climb up many steps just to make the road free for auto
vehicles. In fact the impetus for the sky-walks comes from two sources -
first is corruption, and the second from the belief that roads are meant
mainly for auto-mobiles and getting the pedestrians off the roads is a good
idea for improving traffic.

We feel auto vehicles must stop as often and as long as necessary for the
pedestrians to cross roads at grade. If on account of the high number of
pedestrians the timing for cars to stop is too long  - that is a proof that
the road is ripe for pedestrians only treatment. The automobile then needs
to be banned or severely restricted through TDM measures.

As usual I have been liberal in answering your question but I thought one
could get a wrong picture by taking too narrow a focus while looking at the
budget.
We will share our findings about the Pune Municipal Corporation Budget with
you. Should take about three weeks I guess.

With warm regards,
--
Sujit









On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 9:52 AM, Sudhir <sudhir at cai-asia.org> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> We are searching for % of Budget allocated for pedestrians in our cities
> and
> unfortunately could not find many Asian cities.
>
> Do you know how much % of money authorities are planning  to invest on
> pedestrians in your city?
>
> thanks,
> Sudhir Gota
> Transport Specialist
> CAI-Asia Center
> Unit 3510, 35th Floor, Robinsons-Equitable Tower,
> ADB Avenue, Ortigas Center, Pasig City
> Metro Manila, Philippines 1605
> Tel: +63-2-395-2843
> Fax: +63-2-395-2846
> Visit our new portal: www.cleanairinitiative.org
> Skype : sudhirgota
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-- 
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“..each million we invest into urban motorways is an investment
to destroy the city“

Mayor Hans Joachim Vogel
Munich 1970

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Sujit Patwardhan
patwardhan.sujit at gmail.com
sujitjp at gmail.com
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