Student’s Footpath Audit On Residency Road Finds 23 Damaged Spots

A student held a footpath audit in Bengaluru on Thursday and found as many as 23 spots with damages. The student, Shawn Thomas, walked from St Joseph’s College of Commerce on Brigade Road up to St Mark’s Road junction through Residency Road and back. During the audit, apart from the broken footpaths, Thomas found 12 trees blocking the way, roots protruding from the ground in four places, one billboard and 18 curbs to step up and down. Thomas found that the width of the footpath was an average of 150 centimetres. The student covered a total distance of 1.2 kilometres. Raghavendra B Pachhapur, senior lead (projects) with ActionAid Association, said that footpaths should be accessible to all including vulnerable groups.
We need hurdle-free and even-surfaced safe footpaths, Pachhapur said. Footpath need should be designed in a way that is accessible for all people, including the vulnerable groups of society like disabled persons, senior citizens, children and pregnant women. Although TenderSURE roads claimed to be pedestrian-friendly, the stretch on the Residency Road has many hurdles which do not encourage a vulnerable person to use these pedestrian ways.
Pachhapur said that state agencies like the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and the City Traffic Police install poles, booths and boards in the name of services on pedestrian ways, making them unsafe, which discourages walking in the city. At a time when we are facing climate change and climate Crisis, cities across the globe are redesigning to encourage walking – a sustainable mode of mobility. Bengaluru, on the other hand, is on the reverse gear with widening roads encouraging vehicles, uneven surfaces and unsafe footpaths.