Malabar Hill death puts focus back on shrinking pedestrian space

Time of India

2 days ago

Mumbai: Navigating roads during office hours is stressful, especially in Dadar, where the main road is narrow and lined with encroachers, says R. Kannan, a resident of Dadar (E) who uses Naigaon Cross Road daily to get to work.
"I am used to it now, this constant manoeuvring amidst crowds and cars in a narrow lane. I am not afraid anymore," she laughs.
The absence of wide footpaths and the burgeoning population of vehicles are, however, resulting in an alarming number of accidents. The death of a 75-year-old woman, who was trapped between a BEST bus and a parked car on Malabar Hill, has again focused attention on the issue of pedestrian safety.
The stretch opposite the Sahyadri state guest house where the accident took place, has a narrow sidewalk on one side and a row of cars parked illegally on the other, prompting walkers to often use the main carriageway.
Mumbai Traffic Police's 'Mumbai
Road Safety
Annual Report 2023', says 41% of pedestrian accidents were caused by motorcycles and 29% by cars. Fatalities in such cases involved cars (25%), two-wheelers (21%) and heavy vehicles (19%).
"The tragedy in the city is that the footpaths have been taken over by either hawkers or slums or by dhabas, and now by the builders too," says filmmaker and activist Ashok Pandit.
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A typical example would be J.P Road in Andheri (W). Close to the civic market and near the S.V Road subway, the stretch draws a lot of shoppers. But the walk is akin to an obstacle course due to the sheer concentration of hawkers and vehicles. Some residents say BMC does periodically clear out vendors to make parts of the footpaths walkable, but they eventually return to occupy space.
Director of the Andheri Lokhandwala Oshiwara Citizen's Association, Dhaval Shah, says parts of S.V Road in Andheri are typically not easy to navigate on foot and pedestrians are often at risk of dashing into cars.
Residential buildings and societies in many areas have also converted footpaths into ramps for vehicles to get in and out of their buildings. After complaints from the Gulmohar Area Social Welfare Groups in Juhu, BMC's K-West Ward had issued a notice to 19 buildings in their jurisdiction instructing them to rectify such entrances as the slopes were causing inconvenience to pedestrians, especially senior citizens.
When asked, BMC's additional municipal commissioner Abhijit Bangar said sidewalks adjoining building gates will have to comply with walkability standard specified by the Indian Road Congress (IRC). "The footpaths will be tapered down to grade level for easy access," he said. The road department is carrying out a survey to assess walkability as per IRC standards, he added.
BMC has made a Rs 100-crore allocation for footpath development in its 2025-26 budget.
"Footpaths will be extended assessing the width of the road and necessary action will be taken," said Bangar.
Rishi Aggarwal, an activist and the founder of 'The Walking Project', an initiative by a group of activists to plug gaps in pedestrian amenities, however, says smart solutions rather than a lot of funds can prevent pedestrian accidents on roads. He says, "The least which should have been done was disallow car parking and keep a flexible mechanism like a six-inch curbstone or a one-meter footpath."
Aggarwal says the Rs 100-crore budget for the Universal Footpath Policy to create high quality footpaths has to be integrated with other road development projects to ensure a holistic approach. BMC has paired up with the activist group in the past two months, he added. "We are continuously engaged. We did a walkable cities conclave in April where BMC's municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagrani acknowledged and accepted that BMC is not doing enough in this regard.
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