Let's reclaim our pavements

Time of India

13 hours ago

R Edwin Sudhir, a Bengaluru-based journalist and writer, has the interesting privilege of living in a once-sleepy town which has morphed into a city fast-forwarding into a connected world but sadly disconnected with the ground realities of more people competing for shrinking space. The experience is oddly exhilarating yet often mildly alarming for long-time residents who see how technology has transformed a sleepy beantown into a bustling boomtown. And swept its residents too in the headlong rush to keep pace. LESS ... MORE
It's time to wage a war against land grabbers in Bengaluru. This time against home owners who extend their allotted area onto pavements and mark their newly acquired territory with potted plants, parked vehicles or even yellow tape akin to a crime scene. Which, when you come to think about it, is very apt, for grabbing pavement land is a flagrant breaking of the civic code.
These land grabbers are all over the city and law enforcement agencies turn a blind eye to the problem. In any case, they're too busy tackling rising crime and traffic cops are barely coping with the gridlocks. Their inaction not only emboldens grabbers to embellish their pavements but also spurs others into doing something similar.
The end result of this land-grabbing is that pavements become off-limits to those it's meant for – pedestrians.
So, when pedestrians try to negotiate these aforementioned obstacles, it's a lost battle and they're forced to step onto the roads. That's when the risk of getting knocked down by speeding vehicles goes up exponentially. Urban planners of BBMP (the civic agency responsible for the city's infrastructure) are putting in place better roads, parks, streetlights, etc but the pedestrian has been forgotten. While TenderSure roads are a brave attempt to ensure pedestrians have some space to walk on some arterial roads, streets in layouts are a nightmare for them.
These pavement-blocks are an obstacle course for pedestrians. Take, for instance, pavements in front of many restaurants. Some eateries brazenly place moveable tables where customers can partake of their idli-vada-dosa and more. Others don't provide such standing options and their customers stand outside, clutching their plates and partaking of the food. Some provide benches and stools for customers to sit down and eat comfortably.
BBMP has not bothered to crack down on such restaurants. Local residents' welfare associations don't take up this issue because its members are, most likely, regular customers at these very restaurants and wouldn't want to disturb a regular provider of their food. There may be the odd objector but he's quickly told to 'swalpa adjust maadi' (please adjust). If he doesn't, he runs the risk of being branded a troublemaker and being dealt with accordingly.
As a former colleague put it for another problem, 'There's no any hope'.
Or, maybe there is hope, after all. If there's a concerted action by civic agencies and law-enforcing agencies to clear pavements of all obstacles, there will be space for pedestrians to walk and not risk their life and limb on roads.
The time to reclaim our pavements is here and now.
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Views expressed above are the author's own.