Individuals from across the city joined for an ‘April Fool’s Walk’ to conduct an awareness activity around the King’s Circle area in Matunga. Different organisations came together to plan this walk to highlight how the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has been fooling the pedestrians while spending thousands of crores of rupees. On Sunday Fridays For Future, iVolunteer, and Walking Project jointly organised a community walk near the King’s Circle in Matunga to find out the issues that pedestrians face focusing on accessibility, pedestrian infrastructure, and environmental issues. The ‘April Fool’s Walk’ aimed to highlight the wide difference between the BMC’s spendings to upgrade the infrastructure and the ground reality for the pedestrians.
On Sunday around 20 people joined the community walk which was organised on the footpaths around the King’s Circle.The walk found out that while most of the footpaths around the King’s Circle were wide and free from encroachment, they got narrower with encroachment of under-construction buildings near the railway station. The participants also noted that the footpaths lacked accessibility for the specially abled people with uneven slopes and narrow width between the boulders.
Challenges In Pedestrian Accessibility Across City
Vedant Mhatre, program manager at Walking Project said, “Overall, Matunga is one of the better locations in the city for pedestrians. The Kings Circle area has fairly good footpaths with quite a few encroachments and less hawkers but there are a lot of changes necessary for the specially abled. We had one participant in a wheelchair which gave all the participants a very good idea about the issues faced by them.”
In this week’s community walk, special activities were organised for the participants to find out the missing links on the footpaths. Participants were made to walk blindfolded for 20 to 30 metres to provide them with first-hand experience of the daily issues faced by the visually impaired. The participants also measured the difference between the boulders to find out that some of the boulders were very close to each other, restricting a wheelchair to pass by.
Most Un-foolable Mumbaikar: Prizes Awarded At Sunday Walk Event
The Sunday walk also hosted a prize distribution ceremony to felicitate the ‘Most Un-foolable Mumbaikar’ to the participant who found out the most number of faults on the footpaths. The participant to reach the venue first was awarded with the ‘Most Punctual Mumbaikar’ award.
“According to BMC’s own data published in 2016, 51 percent of people use walking as their primary mode of daily transport. Such a large ratio of people don’t benefit from the thousands of crores of rupees spent by BMC for infrastructure upgradation. Until spending is started properly, it is like fooling the people,” said Mhatre.
Walking Project Organise Community Walks Across City To Spread Awareness
Walking Project has been organising Community Walks in different parts of the city and acquaints citizens about the Indian Roads Congress guidelines governing the design of pedestrian spaces. During these walks, the participants explore available footpaths and discuss factors like width and height of footpaths, their continuity and slope, tree shade, noise levels, as well as air quality around the footpaths.
