Preferring Bengaluru footpaths like steak: ‘rare', not ‘well-done'!
Namma Bengaluru may have had a slew of sobriquets to describe the city nationally and globally, but the latest one – and the most apt – that deserves to stick now is: 'City Without Footpaths'.
The irony is that the 'Pensioner's Paradise', which Bengaluru used to be once, has today emerged as the biggest threat for pensioners and elders, because there are no footpaths for them to walk safely on. And the average modern Bengalureans – although constantly cursing under the breath for being presented with a city without footpaths to live in – seem to have accepted their fate, and absorbed the culture of a 'foothpathless' city in their DNA. That probably explains why even in public spaces with the seemingly miraculous presence of a good footpath, Bengalureans still walk on the road, risking their lives with vehicles zooming past, rather than take refuge on the footpath – as if they are robotically programmed to do so.
This 'robotic programming' can be explained. For a city with 1,672 Km of total road length, a pathetically meagre 3 Km is estimated to have proper footpaths on both sides of the road. The word 'proper' in this context means a footpath that is safe to walk on for all age groups of people. But there seems to be a subconscious assumption that the very few footpaths that exist in the city are not meant to be stepped on. It is probably the value of its rarity that instilled a high degree of respect among the people (anything that is rare has higher value, right?), and setting one's foot on something that is highly respected is a strict 'no'! That is probably why those very rare existing well-laid footpaths are viewed with awe and wonder rather than be used for what they are meant for. The value of a footpath in Bengaluru, therefore, is justified by its existential rarity. Let pedestrian safety be thrown to the winds!
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