Bellandur in Bengaluru is infamous for its lake catching fire or frothing sewage. But residents of the city’s IT corridor want their locality to be known for something positive.
For that, citizens collective— Bellandur Jothuge, wants to make their ward a model for the city in terms of walkability.
‘Bellandur Walks’— is a walkability proposal with the goal that everyone in Bellandur may walk safely, comfortably and unencumbered to work, recreation areas and public transport stations by June 2019.
The way to achieve this is to remodel 28 kilometres of the ward’s footpaths of the area by June 2019 with pelican signals. Other stretches are also being identified through crowdsourcing.
The citizens have also approached the Bengaluru Mayor to allocate Rs 50 crore for this project out of the Mayor’s discretionary funds.
Although the Mayor did not promise this amount, he has instructed the Mahadevpura Joint Commissioner to carry out a 4-km pilot project.
Following this, the residents on Monday met Mahadevpura Chief Engineer Parameshwaraiah who will oversee the pilot project.
Parameshwariah told TNM, “I had good discussions with the citizens yesterday. We are taking this very positively. All the inputs are being worked out. I appreciate the citizens for taking out their time to concentrate on civic related work.”
Model footpath
The model footpath will be recyclable— made up of rubber pavers with steel/ fibre bases which are easy-to-maintain. These footpaths will also have pelican/ walk signals at strategic points so that people can cross roads safely.
Amita Pillai, an architect who is designing the pavements based on citizen inputs said that the priority in design is to ensure that it encourages people to walk.
“In all footpaths we have observed that drains, cables lie underneath. Once there is any repair work to be done, it is dug open and left open for months. This model of footpaths will ensure easy access to these underground facilities and can be replaced easily to cause minimum disturbance to the pedestrian,” Amita said.
The pavements will also have recycle waste bins, and resident welfare association-owned composting bins, street benches.
Amita added that efforts will be taken to ensure that the pavements are aesthetically appealing while being ergonomically suitable for human movement.
Citizens feel this will help decongest roads, and promote walking or using public transport.
You can access the current plan using Google Maps here. (Purple lines: Arterial roads,Green lines: Bellandur Walks footpaths and Blue lines: Lake trails)