Footpaths are for pedestrians! Not hard to understand!

The traffic police clamp down on offenders across the city

Following mid-day's reports about the encroachment of vehicles and vendors on footpaths, the Mumbai police's traffic division has launched a full-scale campaign to penalise all such offenders.

The sheer scale of the response to this problem showed just how widespread and grave this is. Our footpaths have for very many years been unwalkable in many parts. The current big bugbear is footpath parking. The police claims they have taken action with a number of fines, etc. Yet, given the paucity of space and vehicles, especially two-wheelers in the city, this is a problem that is not going to go away easily. The fines need to be stringent enough to bite so that they act as both, current example and future deterrent.

Meanwhile, bike parking is one aspect, there are many other dimensions to be considered when it comes to footpaths.

First is, make the footpath top quality filling in the cavities left by dislodged paver blocks. The second is, see that waste bins on the footpaths are secured, not overturned as it happens in many places.

At times garbage mounds are piled on one side of the footpaths or in corners, so that they become dustbins themselves. No dog poop signage and fines should be mentioned on many more footpaths.

Come down firmly on shops increasing their space right on to footpaths. Stop open air illegal restaurants on footpaths with makeshift tables and chairs. Remove small homes and even shops that have claimed a permanent, illegal space on our footpaths. In fact, pavements have become a free real estate acquisition if one could call it that for so many people. The pedestrian is the hardest hit, hapless and most vulnerable.