Please let us WALK

Few weeks ago while returning from office, I saw laborers working on service road to NH-8 near Bharti airtel building. I was happy, at last the administration thought about the pedestrians and is working on footpaths; this road needs one badly. But that happiness of mine survived only few days.

Couple of days to the newly laid footpaths; and there are big bill boards covering full width of the footpath. And those boards were put by none other than our traffic police department.

Government officials are always blaming people for heavy traffic and not using public transport and not opting for a walk for small distances. But where is the space to walk. It’s not only difficult but dangerous to walk on Gurgaon roads (we have to walk on roads as there are no footpaths). I can’t even go to the nearest market without a vehicle, as pedestrians can’t walk without fear of being run over. Metro station is less than a mile away from my home, I want to walk to station but it’s not possible because of heavy traffic and non-existing footpaths. Let aside footpaths while designing so called world class metro station (HUDA city Centre) the planners and developers had not thought about the road crossings at that point; it needs hell lot of guts to cross the road at HUDA city centre where traffic is merging from all directions.

At some places where these footpaths are available these are being used by the street vendors and the shopkeepers for advertisement boards. Few days ago, one of my NRI friends while walking on the footpath near sector 40 market bumped into a billboard standing in the middle of the footpath and had three stitches on his forehead. His only mistake was that, he thought footpath is only for the pedestrians; sorry dude ‘its INDIA’.

It’s clear that administration has no eyes for those who walk. That is why pavement is the first casualty of street widening process to accommodate cars. The need of the hour is to build pedestrian-friendly streets not the extra wide streets; this will help a lot in solving traffic problems.