From Wednesday traffic snarls will be back to trouble lakhs of commuters on the BRT corridor with Delhi Government deciding to revert back to the dedicated lane system. The decision was taken in a meeting held by the transport department of Delhi Government, headed by Transport Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely, on Tuesday and the same will be effective from Tuesday midnight.

In what seems an attempt to save the UT Administration from the ire of the High Court, the Municipal Corporation (MC) has started construction of pedestrian pathways in parking lots in Sector 17. The pathways being constructed in three parking lots would cut across the parking lot connecting one side to the other. The basic purpose of the pathway is, however, defeated as there would be provision for vehicles to go over these.

With reference to the series titled ‘Scrap the trap’, you have claimed that ‘people want their road back’. However, do the people here include cyclists and bus commuters or only car/bike users? Without considering the opinions of the first two categories of road users, it would be at best an assumption that the views of a certain privileged section of society is the opinion of all the users of the BRT stretch.

Skywalk, enclosed pedestrian crossings suggested. A ‘Skywalk' at Thampanoor has been proposed along with the 41.8-km monorail, an elevated rail-based mass rapid transit system (MRTS), on the Pallippuram-Neyyattinkara stretch of the city.

The National Transportation Planning and Research Centre (Natpac), in its feasibility report, has recommended pedestrian facilities along with the MRTS which will run at an interval of every five minutes, with stoppages of 20 to 30 seconds at each of the 35 stations.

New Delhi:The state of trees in the city is “abysmal”, say environmentalists. Recently, NGO Kalpvriksha surveyed Delhi’s trees, covering areas from Ramlila Maidan to Dhaula Kuan, including Paharganj, Anand Parbat, North Campus, Rajghat, Vikas Marg and Moti Bagh and found that most trees are either diseased or dead, top heavy due to incorrect lopping or suffocating due to concretization around roots.

Founder member and trustee of Parisar, Sujit Patwardhan, is working hard to bring the environment issues to the forefront through citizens’ campaigns and collaborative activism with other like-minded organisations. The aim is to ensure that industrial and urban development does not lead to damage and destruction of the environment. He speaks to Soumabha Nandi about the traffic woes that have engulfed the city of late.

Jogging tracks, gardens, on-the-go shopping and eating spots on the skywalks, convenient bus-stops that do not encroach on the pavements - these are some of the recommendations made by a combined group of architecture students from India and France to ensure a more pedestrian-friendly city. The students of Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Architecture (BVCOA), Navi Mumbai, in association with a group from Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecturede Paris La Villette (ENSAPLV), France, studied varied crowded spots in Navi Mumbai before formulating these suggestions.

NEW DELHI: Serious about bringing down its pedestrian death rate, New York City is improving 60 miles of road length every year. The plan is to make the megalopolis completely pedestrian friendly by 2030. Many other developed cities, too, have shown similar seriousness on pedestrian safety with master plans and strict laws. In Singapore, for instance, accidents can result in cancellation of driving licence.