On the occasion of the 162nd anniversary of the birth of the famous monk, philosopher, and novelist Swami Vivekanand, who the road is named for, Mumbaikars took part in a walk on the 23.6-kilometer Swami Vivekanand Road (S V Road) on Sunday.
The Walking Project, an organisation that works to make Mumbai a safe and pleasant place to walk, organised the walk, which took place in Borivali, Malad, Vile Parle, and Bandra. At the four sites, a small group of individuals gathered, distributed leaflets to passersby and held up placards. At ten in the morning, the stroll started, and it lasted for an hour.
At precisely ten in the morning, the walk began at Lucky Junction, which is perpendicular to the train station. To get there, the participants, who came from all around the city, boarded an early morning train before the rail mega block started. One participant recorded a timelapse to show how the walkways were in poor condition for pedestrians.
The participants distributed brochures and attempted to raise awareness of the value of pedestrian-friendly roadways as curious onlookers followed them as they passed. It is the responsibility of the public to preserve the walkways and make them walkable, according to Val, a Project Mumbai worker who continuously moved aside trash on the road throughout the trip. Vedant Mhatre, the group leader, measured the height of the walkways at different places and recommended a set height of 15 cm.
The walkers had to continuously leave the course to avoid the obstacles, as the timelapse video demonstrated. After noticing the awareness campaign, Prashant Vaidya and his spouse, a senior citizen couple from Bandra who reside on S V Road, approached the group. “People block the path by parking their cars on the sidewalk. The traffic police issue challans in response to complaints, but this persists,” they stated.
The HT reporter was one of six people who gathered outside the train station. People leaving the station looked at the group with interest. “Kya chalna pasand hai aapko? Speaking to a group of young students, Walking Project leader Rishi Agarwal stated, “We are fighting for the rights of pedestrians, who have no voice.”
With numerous obstacles, the group started to walk towards the Kandivali end of S V Road around fifteen minutes after ten in the morning. We witnessed everything in the first 100 meters, including uneven roads, shops encroaching on the roadways, subterranean cables emerging on the pathway, and carelessly parked cars.
A traffic policeman, who is typically the first point of contact for such matters, demonstrated to the group that there was no pedestrian space at the Bandra junction, a five-way intersectional road, as the walk went on and the participants handed out flyers and took pictures of the obstacles they encountered. People are forced to run over the road crossing or only make it halfway due to the blurry traffic signal.
The walks in Europe are lovely, according to Keyur Mistry, an architect from Borivali who now lives in London. “We recognise the significance of pedestrians and our neglect in Mumbai,” he stated. “Good, pedestrian-friendly infrastructure is something this city deserves.” Mistry, who is on vacation in Mumbai, chose to take part in the Walking Project after learning about it on social media.
Sonal Desai, another walker, asked others to join her and recorded the trek on her camera. A group of men was talking at a bus stop outside Borivali Jail about how the government was not serious about solving the issues that ordinary people faced, therefore this was a pointless exercise and nothing would change. According to Thakur Village resident Desai, “No one wants to come on record and speak their mind about these vital issues.”
Source: Hindustan Times
