Pedestrian Supreme Court Walkable Cities

Imagine a city where streets are not merely conduits for vehicles but public spaces where people can walk safely — across roads, through neighbourhoods, and to schools, markets, workplaces and recreation centres. Imagine avenues lined with wide, unobstructed footpaths and convenient crossings, allowing residents to move about on foot with ease and dignity. In the Indian context, such a vision remains fraught. As an analysis in this newspaper shows, while overall road fatalities rose by 21.24 per cent between 2015 and 2024, deaths among those travelling on foot surged by nearly 163 per cent. The number of people killed while walking on the country's roads increased from 13,894 in 2015 to 36,526 in 2024. That’s why a Supreme Court decision, on Friday, is significant. It held that the right to walk safely on demarcated footpaths is a fundamental right flowing from Article 21 of the Constitution and must take precedence over the movement of motor vehicles. All too often in the country, the pedestrian is marginal to urban planning. That is despite the last Census data showing that more than 4 crore Indians engaged in non-agricultural pursuits walk to work every day. For another large section, the journey involves walking to bus stops and Metro or train stations. Yet, urban development is routinely equated with wider roads, flyovers and faster traffic flows. Footpaths, where they exist, are often narrow, broken, encroached upon, or abruptly disappear, forcing people to walk onto busy carriageways. There is very little regard for safe crossings for the elderly, children or persons with disabilities. Policymakers should pay particular heed to the Court’s criticism of the inequality that lies at the core of this automobile-centred urban imagination. “It could also be elitism to start with, for machines with wheels were only for the rich, but as economies progressed and cheaper motor vehicles were introduced, the entire spectrum of motorised transportation dominated the roads, pushed aside the walkers to the extent that they are treated as a nuisance for the drivers who routinely run over the walkers and their footpaths. This should stop from now,” it said while delivering its verdict in a case whose genesis lies in a road accident that resulted in the death of a five-year-old, walking to his school. Especially prescient is the two-judge bench’s criticism of the Motor Vehicles Act. Despite several amendments, mechanised transport continues to hold centre stage in the law. As the Court pointed out, even the latest regulations, incorporated in the Act nine years ago, “neither recognise the fundamental right to walk on demarcated footpaths nor prioritise the right to footpath over a motorised road”. The verdict, therefore, is a call to move towards cities where mobility is determined not by ownership of a vehicle but by the equal right of every individual to move safely through public spaces. Urban planning around the world is increasingly recognising that walkable cities are also more liveable cities. Studies and real-world examples show that pedestrian-friendly urban centres lower pollution and congestion, strengthen social interaction, and even stimulate economic activity. Copenhagen has made walking and cycling integral to everyday life through pedestrian streets and traffic-calming measures, while Bogotá's transport model recognises that every public commute journey begins and ends on foot. Curitiba in Brazil and Kigali in Rwanda have similarly reimagined mobility by placing walking at the centre of urban design. The lesson is equally evident in India. A 2019 ITDP study found that the construction of new footpaths in Chennai reduced dependence on motorised transport by 9 to 27 per cent, cut greenhouse-gas emissions and expanded economic opportunities for women and persons with disabilities. The message - that a city that enables its residents to walk safely is likely to be a healthier and cleaner one –– is salient given the country’s struggle with pollution and lifestyle diseases. Of course, there can be no template to democratise mobility. Several of the interventions adopted elsewhere may not be completely transplantable to Indian cities that have high population densities, large informal settlements, mixed land use and severe constraints on urban land. Even then, the SC verdict invites planners to begin with a more fundamental question: Can cities be designed to enable people to go about their daily commitments, regardless of whether they own a vehicle? Retrofitting older cities, with their narrow roads and entrenched patterns of development, could prove difficult and expensive. But as the SC has underlined, unobstructed footpaths are not extravagant interventions but minimum conditions for the exercise of the fundamental right to movement. In that sense, its verdict should be seen as an invitation to organise cities around accessibility. The judgment is also consequential because India's urban story is still being written. Dozens of new urban centres and peri-urban settlements are expected to emerge in the coming decades as the country's population becomes increasingly urban. The choices will determine whether these cities replicate the mistakes of automobile-centric planning or embrace a more equitable model. Let’s think them through. Till next time, Kaushik Das Gupta