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Pedestrian Subway - Change In Design
Written By Naveen - 8 April, 2009
Bangalore Road Safety suggestion amenities Transportation Infrastructure Pedestrian Infrastructure Mobilicity subway solutions
In the recent past, many pedestrian underpasses have been built at various locations. However, the utility of these for pedestrian crossings has been minimal & one hardly finds pedestrians using them, unless forced to with barricades (eg. Pedestrian subway at City Railway Station, & at KBS).
This raises questions as to why they are ignored by pedestrians. One obvious reason is that everyone prefers to cross a street just about anywhere based on individual needs & requirements. The other, not so obvious reason is the discomfort in using them, especially for old people, small children, disabled people & pregnant women. The ordeal of descending about 8-9ft & climbing up again is perhaps a strain even for ordinary people when coupled with walking, sometimes long distances. Overhead walkways are even more uncomfortable for people as they have to climb even higher & then descend back to street level (about 12-15 ft or more, in some cases).
BBMP may claim to have addressed the needs of pedestrians by building these, but in the larger interests of users, a solution is necessary to ensure that these do not remain mere showpieces.
What if we make the subways as shown in the sketch above ? Position the subway midway below street level so that pedestrians need only descend about 4 feet instead of the usual 8 ft or more. Needless to say, an elevation of the road would also be necessary, stretching over a length of a mere 55 ft, or about 17 mtrs for a gradient of about 10 degrees. This rise in street level will also ensure that pedestrians do not cut across the street over this stretch & will have no option but to use the subway. Sidewalks will need to be maintained at grade, throughout & preferably barricaded for safety of all.
If designs that do not require pedestrians to physically stress themselves are adopted, such as the example above, we might see better utilization of pedestrian subways.
Appreciate your inputs & ideas in this regard.
COMMENTS
Naveen - 9 April, 2009 - 02:39
IDS - Good example for locations where there is ample space, also assists wheel-chairs, prams, & hand carts !
At most locations, we seem to have space constraints. I think the walk distance also increases with this design, is'nt it ?
Good idea, but cant be used everywhere!!
Srivatsava - 9 April, 2009 - 08:03
Naveen,
I would concede that this is a good idea, especially if conveniently sloped ramps are provided to enter the subway.
But, this cannot be the template for every subway we have to construct in the future. I would argue that this augurs well for the kind of ped underpasses that are built on the roads away from junctions (Eg: opposite RBI on NT road).
What we need further is not subways to cross a road, but ones to cross a junction. That could well mean a network of such ped underpasses. While at Basaveshwara circle, there are two 'magic' ped underpasses, what we actually need is a loop which forms the subway,and entrance/exit to both sides of each road at the junction. Only then can we effectively provide safe access to ALL pedestrians at the junctions.
-Srivatsava V
Srivatsava - 9 April, 2009 - 08:17
While I talked about subways to 'safely' cross the junctions and not just roads, the introduction of metro will provide an additional necessity.
For attracting ridership onto metro, we need more (number of) larger/longer and wider subways as entry points to the Metro station. Additionally, the subways and stations should be designed such that they are merged into one entity. i.e. the pedestrians should be able to use the subways without 'entering' the metro stations!!
Additionally, for both the Metro and pure-pedestrian 'junction subways', we need to interconnect two or more of those subways underground, so that users can enter the subway at one junction and walk underground for the next 1-2 junctions, and get out of the subway network at another junction!!
-Srivatsava V
jennypinto - 9 April, 2009 - 02:35
this is basically a magic box for pedestrians! good idea!
bring srivatsa's attention to this...they are working on a footpath improvement plan to propose to BBMP.
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