Part 2: Open for People

I have recently had some evolving thoughts on cities, transport, the environment, etc. This is the second part. I don't necessarily promise a third part. Click here for Part 1.

I arrived in Bengaluru around October 2021 after spending 3 years in Europe, mostly Rome, Italy. It was a chaotic time in most people's life, going back and forth between lockdowns and mask mandates and vaccine doses. It was particularly chaotic for those living in and around Malleswaram as Sampige road, a major, arterial road, was being "white-topped". I have written, whined, cursed and complained about this white-topping exercise multiple times in this blog before, but let me repeat what exactly it consists of. 

As far as I understand, "white-topping" is the media coinage for replacing tar roads with concrete roads. It also involves remaking the footpaths with concrete blocks, shifting all wiring, water and other pipes and cables underground in a metallic casing where it can easily be opened and repaired. This would avoid the need to dig the road for future maintenance work. The local Malleswaram MLA claimed that this was all work that was pending for several decades and that these few months of work would ensure that no roads would have to be dug or blocked for the next 100 years in the city. There could be some truth in this and overall, there was a certain streamlining of several parallel systems - no more electric poles for wires, no gaping holes in the footpath straight into the drainage. 

While this was work was ongoing however, there was complete and absolute chaos all along the streets of interior Malleswaram. Cars and scooters now thronged and choked these narrow streets, with long pile-ups reaching usually quiet and sedate residential streets. Every day a new road would be blocked and some other alternate route was suggested with little forethought or idea about the flow of traffic, with no prior warning. The streets were a nightmare to walk on. The holes and pits dug everywhere made them extremely dangerous and the construction dust was everywhere. Add on top of this constant rains throughout 2022 (the highest recorded by Bengaluru) and the incessant honking of vehicles. 

It was in the midst of this chaos that I found myself at the flower market right on Sampige road, buying flowers for an upcoming festival. As I was navigating through the sludge and construction debris and avoiding falling into the deep pits dug nearby, I actually noticed something - it was still somehow quite peaceful. The weather was nice. Sampige road is lined with large, shady trees that keep the surface reasonably cool even on the hottest days. Mostly importantly, there weren't any vehicles passing. No constant honking, no roar of loud engines, no smoke, no fear of being crushed to death under the wheels of a car with one small misstep. 

Under usual circumstances (for example, right now), the flower market takes up the entire footpath while there's a bus stop nearby. Heavy traffic whizzes by your shoulder as you are forced to walk right on the street. There are cars parked at random simply on the side of the street which completely puts the flow of traffic out of gear. This leads to more block-ups, more honking and more vehicles willing to speedily snake in and out of lanes between other vehicles, putting pedestrians at even more risk. 

I had a random thought - what if Sampige road just remained closed for traffic at all times. I am cognisant of the fact that Sampige road is an important link between the central areas of the city (Market, Majestic, MG Road) and the north - north-west of the city (Yashvantpura, Peenya, Jalahalli). Let's ignore that for the moment. 

Even with the traffic and terrible footpaths and vehicles parked everywhere and vendors occupying large parts of the footpath, Sampige road is thronged by pedestrians. It's a major shopping centre and becomes extremely crowded during festivals. Navigating 8th cross Malleswaram, a famous shopping street, is also fraught with danger under normal circumstances. This narrow street has a large volume of traffic and is filled with pedestrians. Why not let the pedestrians walk and breathe in peace? 

In the section of Sampige road where there was no active work going on but was still closed, the shop-keepers had brought their wares right on to the streets. The people were bustling on the street, buying, bargaining. Parents were more relaxed about which direction their kids were running. One misstep might cause a child to trip and fall on hard concrete, but at least he/she wouldn't be hit by a 1000 kilogram box of steel. 

"You don't close the street to traffic, you open the street to people". 

I have stayed in Europe for a few years now, visited quite a few cities and towns. A trip to Europe is on everyone's bucket list. We love to take pictures of beautiful city-centres with cobbled-stone alleys and street markets, maybe the dome of a church in the background. Beautiful walks along rivers, posing in front of monuments. Now imagine if there wasn't a park in front of the Eifel tower but hundreds of honking cars and vehicles on a regular, busy Parisian street. Or the Colosseum being ringed by broad streets full of heavy traffic. 

The point isn't that Rome or Paris don't have traffic issues. However, when they want to put their best foot forward, when they want tourists to have a good time and visit again and again and bring in all that revenue, they eliminate cars and vehicles from the setting. They plant trees or set-up a lawn or a garden, block traffic and allow people to move around. How often do you hear about a collision between two people being fatal? A large congregation of people leads to a lively hum of festivity and chatter, not honking and smoke. 

When vehicles pass through a crowd of pedestrians, it's always extremely unpleasant for pedestrian and driver, while also being dangerous. If you ever walk down 8th cross Malleswaram from Margosa Road to Sampige Road on any given evening, you will see it unfold right in front of your eyes. Two-wheelers irresponsibly whizzing past crowds of people. Auto-rickshaw drivers who assume that if they race down the road constantly blowing their horns, they gain some God-given right to the road-space. 

It's the same with Eat-Street in VV Pura. It's the same with Church Street - Church Street was converted into a pedestrian only street, but I don't know why that was changed. Cubbon Park is closed to vehicles on Sundays - and you immediately see the huge crowds that turn up.

In India however, there's an even bigger problem - cars which aren't being used. Walk on any street and just look at how much public space, whether road space or pedestrian space, is occupied by cars just parked there. This might be outside private homes because people don't want to use precious and over-inflated real estate on car-parking. Or it might be on busy roads, where every cosy corner is taken up by some parked vehicle. (try to count the number of parked cars on the sides of this rather broad street in the picture below!) Even if two-wheelers are the culprits often in clogging up the streets and extremely wayward, dangerous driving, ultimately the space crunch is caused by the large number of cars. Bengaluru has an insane 1.16 crore private vehicles! 1.6 lakh cars were registered in fiscal year 2023-24 alone. 

This while road networks have remained the same apart from a few flyovers or widened roads here and there. Bus fleet number has remained stagnant for more than a decade. And progress on the metro has been quite slow. The situation is particularly dire given that compared to other metropolitan cities in the world, the city fares very poorly in road density (km of road per square km). It's around 1/3rd of Delhi, for example. There simply is no space, and no space to add more space.

That doesn't mean cars don't have their utility - cars and roadways are often the only way to reach certain areas. Personal cars are a lifeline in times of emergencies. They're sometimes essential for older people or those with disabilities. And let's face it, they're great marvels of engineering and amazing machines! But when they're everywhere in cities and people are forced to slink away, then they become an intrusion.

In fact, I would argue that genuine car-lovers, those who love driving for entertainment must be the strongest advocates of eliminating cars and private vehicles from public places in cities as much as possible. Pedestrians, unlike cars, are easy to manage and manoeuvre and occupy very little space. Let the streets be freer for people and for car users, by taking cars off the streets.