Paving the Way for Walkable Cities
Walkable Cities is an initiative by Sensing Local, an Urban Living Lab based in Bengaluru, that aims to improve the pedestrian infrastructure of our cities by leveraging technology and civic participation.
Sensing Local focuses on tackling civic and environmental issues by operating at the intersection of urban planning and governance. Their first pilot programme, Walkable Bengaluru, launched in 2023 offers a potential blueprint to improve walkability in a rapid, affordable, and inclusive way.
Under Walkable Bengaluru, walkability audits were conducted across 19 wards in approximately 40 days, spanning 350 km of footpaths and 185 junctions with the support of 150+ trained citizen volunteers.
We talk to Sobia Rafiq and Ankit Bhargava, the co-founders of Sensing Local, to learn about Walkable Cities and the role of citizen participation.
Why is walkability important, and why don’t more residents adopt it?
A 2020 report by ITDP analysed mobility patterns across India found that walking accounts for ~36% of all trips. Walkability is critical to promoting zero-emission trips and serving as first — and last-mile connections to public transport. This is particularly important in the context of rapid urbanisation, where in cities like Bengaluru, new vehicles are increasing at the rate of 10% per year, leading to more traffic congestion, air pollution, and so many other problems.
Walking remains a ubiquitous mode of getting around the city for almost everyone, whether for short or long trips. However, it is hindered by poor infrastructure, with cities across the country plagued with broken, ill-designed, or absent footpaths and unscientifically engineered junctions.
Tell us about Walkable Cities. How do these help in mobility issues in the city?
Walkable Cities is a national initiative by us to improve walkability in Indian cities. To enable this, we have developed a digital planning tool called ‘Step up’ designed to enable rapid on-field phone-based audits to assess walkability and produce highly accurate geospatial and photo data.
The data is used to generate issue analysis and budget estimations that can support government and local community prioritise investments for highest impact, rooted in citizen needs. The walkability audits are conducted across footpaths and junctions, accounting for 27 parameters regarding waste, encroachment, obstructions, safety, and infrastructure quality.
The principal problem in solving walkability lies in the practical constraints of road space and limited municipal budgets that make it impossible to fix every footpath on every road and every neighbourhood. As a result, current footpath infrastructure is often developed as small disconnected stretches, leading to minimal improvement for end users.
In this context, Walkable Cities offers a strategic approach to solving for walkability at scale by identifying and investing in ‘Priority Walking Networks’ to improve safety, comfort, and access for all. Priority walking networks are the routes most conducive to walking in a neighbourhood or ward. They are derived by analysing the connectivity of roads and traffic patterns and mapping trip attractors such as educational and religious institutions, offices, commercial areas, parks, and hospitals.
Citizen-led digital audits produce data with high accuracy and ownership that is readily actionable for decision-making. Other innovative aspects include higher speed, lower cost, and greater inclusion. For a given ward, the walkability audit (spanning 6–8 km of streets) and budget estimation can be completed in just 4–5 hours with the support of 15–20 volunteers.
Some key pathways for change are the following:
- Supporting government and local community groups in prioritising which roads for investment of public budgets by using a data-centric approach to evaluating the intensity of issues, budget required, and expected impact.
- Creation of local projects such as — safe school zones, first & last-mile improvement, parking plans
- Identifying areas for interventions to mitigate air pollution by reducing vehicular trips and/or exposure at junctions and footpaths. In Bengaluru, vehicular emissions account for 60–65% of PM10 and PM2.5.
- Informing creation/implementation of policies such as parking policy and hawking policy.
Is there a criteria for citizen volunteers to be included in your projects? How do they add value?
There were no specific restrictions on who could volunteer for the audits except for their ability to have and use smartphones. Out of a pool of 500 volunteers, over 150 participated in audits across all age groups and genders.
The volunteers were the effort and enthusiasm behind the field audits conducted weekly between 8 am — 9:30 am on Saturdays and Sundays. They also added value in terms of their insights and perceptions about pedestrian behaviours and situations on the ground. Many volunteers came for multiple audits spread across the city, often travelling 45 minutes to an hour to get there. It validated the importance of the issue and the will of the city’s residents to engage in solving it.
Are there any challenges in including volunteers for projects like Walkable Bengaluru?
There are challenges in including specially abled persons and people who are not comfortable using smartphone applications. Recognising this, we bridged this gap by involving them in the discussion workshops after completing the data collection process.
What impact does citizen participation have on society?
Building cities that resonate the priorities of citizens is critical to making them inclusive and liveable, and the best way to do so is by involving citizens as co-creators to the city making process.
Indian cities today face multiple complexities and are entrenched in wicked problems that are almost impossible for the government to solve alone. In this context, citizens’ participation as equal partners is imperative and the only hope for building inclusive and sustainable cities.
At Sensing Local, we see citizens as the bridge towards solving the large data gaps, clarifying city priorities, managing and maintaining public infrastructure through co-ownership models, and solving locally at scale.
Are there instances where citizen volunteers implore decision-makers to address the issues they worked on?
Four community groups have shared their ward report cards and two priority roads to be fixed with the local representatives and relevant government officials as part of ongoing efforts. One community representative has also met the Traffic Commissioner to share details regarding the Walkability project and to work towards junction management, footpath encroachment and coordination aspects with BBMP on street lighting and pedestrian safety.
As a next step, we are doing the following:
- Meeting relevant heads of key government departments, such as Traffic Police, DULT, BBMP and BESCOM, to share data and the findings from the study to nudge for action at the ward level.
- Designing workshops with partners to identify pathways for implementation of parking policy and hawking policy to address the issue of encroachment on footpaths.
- Exploring how air quality data intersects with walkability audit data to identify impactful intervention points.
Write to us with your thoughts, feedback, and/or ideas for collaboration at sustainablemobilitynetwork@gmail.com.
