Raahgiri city plots street-smart future
Immersed in riches of all variety, a demanding metropolis like Gurgaon has a severe shortage of time. So when time is devoted to discuss some of the more pressing concerns of the day, the gesture itself is noteworthy. However Friday’s workshop went beyond gestures which were titled as ‘Sustainable Transport in Gurgaon – What Next?’It was an effort taken up to reach at realistic solutions to the problems of urban transport in the city.
The workshop was co-hosted by The Times of India and EMBARQ India by bringing together the stakeholders, urban planners, government officials and residents on one forum and was seen as a necessary follow-up to Raahgiri Day’s immense success in Gurgaon.
The important question for which the forum was struggling was, Now that the Raahgiri movement is on the rising, and now that there is an obvious demand for better infrastructure for non-motorized transport in Gurgaon, what next?
Gil Penelosa, in an inspired keynote speech said that “Walking, cycling and public transport should be a right of residents in any city.” Former transport commissioner of Bogota, Colombia, Penelosa had an important role to play in the local cycling festival Ciclovia, on which Raahgiri Day is modelled, to new levels.
He said, developing supportable transport work is not the issue of budgets and money, it’s about getting your priorities right, he further added political motivation was the pre-requisite for such changes to occur. Giving the instance of his own record in Bogota, he said, “Twenty-seven years in that city, we had nothing. And within three years we built footpaths, parks and bikeways all across.”
Low-speed zones
A suggestion came from Penelosa that the residential colonies should be marked as “low-speed zones” and he also mentioned that there is a requirement of a network protected cycle lanes in the city “physically separated from the rest of the road”.
Nitin Seth of Nasscom made the case for sustainable transport from the view-point of industry.He alleged that for the survival of Gurgaon’s industry, active commuting had become an “existential necessity”, he added, our real estate cost is less than our transport costs, which increasingly challenges the growth of our industry.
A further suggestion came from Seth, to set up a sustainable transport forum which will have candidates from the IT-BPO sectors, civil society and the administration, and which is “empowered to take decisions”.
Huge investment would not be required for revamping Gurgaon’s streets, as alleged by S K Lohia, national project director of the Centre’s Sustainable Urban Transport Project. He added small changes can make a huge difference, we are not demanding high-cost infrastructure.
At Friday’s conference among other panellists there was commissioner of police Alok Mittal, and TOI’s Ranjan Roy present ,who stated that Raahgiri Day was the”opening up of a dialogue”,at one level t is cultural and on another it is administrative. What the situation’s demand now is to take the next step ahead?
Source: The Times of India
Administration, Alok Mittal, Bogota, Centre's Sustainable Urban Transport Project, Ciclovia, Civil society, Embarq India, Gil Penelosa, Government officials, Gurgaon, Gurgaon's industry, IT-BPO sectors, Low speed zones, Nasscom, Nitin Seth, Non-motorized transport, Raahgiri Day's, Ranjan Roy, Residential colonies, Residents, S K Lohia, Stakeholders, The Times of India, Urban planners, Urban transport
