The city has often been thought of as a body with different organs performing their various functions, all brought to life by the circulatory system of streets. Like arteries and veins, streets snake through the city, transporting everything a city needs to survive and thrive. Their configurations play a pivotal role in creating a city’s ‘footprint’, offering a tangible glimpse into its history, priorities, and power structures, all woven within the urban tapestry. Streets function as the lifelines of a city, providing light, air, and movement while serving as conduits for human activity. They facilitate travel between neighbourhoods, act as sites for public events, historical commemorations, and spontaneous gatherings for various purposes, from celebration to protest. This amalgamation of ingrained use, historical significance, and structural permanence explains why streets persist, often outlasting adjacent built structures even in the face of calamity or conflict. After upheavals, these streetscapes, with their subterranean infrastructure, often serve as guiding templates for urban reconstruction, acting as anchors for the city’s revival.
The enduring historical, social, and economic role they have played for centuries points to the pivotal position streets hold. To truly realise the potential of a city as a living, breathing entity, it is imperative to prioritise people-centric design principles and infuse our streets with safety, accessibility, and vitality. When we design our streets with the most vulnerable road users in mind, we design a society that protects those with the least physical, financial, mental, and political protections afforded to them. Embracing a ‘people-first’ approach in street design entails placing pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit users at the centre. It involves crafting spaces that cater to everyone, irrespective of age, ability, or mode of transport.
In our work at the Raahgiri Foundation, we infuse our commitment to fostering a living city everything we do. From community engagement to infrastructure redesign, we prioritise the people who inhabit and bring life to the city. Started over a decade ago, our flagship initiative was Raahgiri Day. Raahgiri Day is India’s first sustained citizen initiative that makes streets exclusive to pedestrians and cyclists promoting road safety, healthy living, and connecting communities by reclaiming city streets and public spaces, to eventually reclaim urban lives. By involving the communities we serve in everything we do, we keep their needs and wants at the forefront. Making the street safe and accessible to all, transforming it into a place with activities, sports, space to play, it becomes an inclusive space for people of all ages, all physical and mental abilities, all communities, and all backgrounds.
Beyond community engagement and outreach, Raahgiri Foundation is working on redesigning existing intersections to make them safe and accessible for all road users. This works towards our aims of road safety and inclusive infrastructure. These intersections include Hero Honda Chowk, IFFCO Chowk, Khushboo Chowk, Krishna Chowk, Valley View intersection, Farrukhnagar Chowk, Hailey Mandi Flyover intersection, Dhankot Chowk, and Kanhai Chowk. Problems with the existing infrastructure are researched, road traffic trials are conducted, and then permanent changes are made to provide pedestrian and cyclist safety, designated pick-up and drop-off points, traffic signals, lane balancing, slowing down fast traffic among other changes.
Some of the intersections redesigned come under our long-running involvement in the global Vision Zero movement. Vision Zero aims to reduce the number of road deaths to zero by identifying black spots (streets or intersections with high numbers of deaths), conducting crash investigations, fostering community engagement, and promoting technology-driven solutions for improved road safety. Raahgiri Foundation is and has been involved in three Vision Zero projects in India. Haryana Vision Zero was launched in 2017, Punjab Vision Zero in 2018, and Gurugram Vision Zero in 2022. Gurugram Vision Zero is a partnership between Raahgiri Foundation, Gurugram District Administration and Nagarro. In one year, as a part of Gurugram Vision Zero, due to our street redesign efforts, three black spots have been resolved, reducing pedestrian deaths by 12.7%.
Currently underway is our holistic effort to redevelop the road formerly known as ‘Anath’ (“the neglected and forgotten”) Road. This 2.4km street lacked proper infrastructure for the over 20,000 pedestrians and 3,000 cyclists who use it on weekdays, the corporate offices that lined the street, as well as the people inhabiting the urban villages bordering the street. Renamed Sanath (“reclaimed”) Road, the road is now being transformed into a model street that will serve as a blueprint for streets around the country. The transformation aims to create a model street with a carriageway, footpath, dedicated bicycle path, space for vendors, and designated pick-up/drop-off points. Additionally, a green belt will separate the road from adjacent office buildings. Other streets that have been redeveloped by Raahgiri Foundation include MG Road, Sector 58 to 67, South City I, and Sector 56. By putting in place pedestrian and cyclist friendly infrastructure on these streets we make them inclusive and safe, bettering public health, city accessibility as well as road safety.
This multi-pronged approach strives toward our mission to promote safe, accessible, and sustainable streets, mitigate traffic congestion, reduce CO2 emissions, and enhance urban liveability. As inhabitants of the city, we all have a deep vested interest in tending to, and bettering, its health. As we transform the network of streets our cities depend upon, we transform lives.
