Urban Transport Strategy. Management in Developing Countries John A Cracknell, страница 64

7.3.5.      To summarise, attitudes to road space reallocation can be changed and sound bus based systems can be achieved.  The Bank can play an important role by promoting the “people” objective rather than the “vehicle” objective of traffic management.

7.4         Pedestrian facilities

7.4.1.      It is a truism that most travellers are pedestrians at one stage or another in their journey (except for the door-to-door car users who can no longer be contemplated as a reasonable proposition in a modern, heavily trafficked city).  However, pedestrian travel is vital for the poor in particular.  For example, in Indian medium sized cities, walk can represent 20%-30% of all journeys and in other low income countries, the position is similar²⁵.

7.4.2.      There are of course good examples of pedestrian treatment such as

♦           Pedestrianisation of many central squares in Latin American cities;

♦            Comprehensive pedestrianisation and environmental treatment in cities like Curitiba, some streets in Bogota;

²⁵ Urban Transport in Asia, An Operational Agenda for the 1990’s, Peter Midgley, Technical Paper 224,

1994, ISSN 0253-7494, Annex Table 11 shows percentages of walk journeys as between about 20% and 50% of all trips

♦            Although not “traffic management”, in many Latin American countries, road paving in poor areas is undertaken to provide bus access and most of these roads are provided with pedestrian footways

7.4.3.      At a minimum, pedestrians need to be able to walk in a safe and convenient manner to/from a mechanised mode (bus or para transit or possibly train) and possibly, the poor, for the whole of their journey.  However, pedestrian needs and facilities are often the least well designed and treated within a traffic management strategy.  The issues are, particularly in poor cities:

a)  Footways are not always provided, particularly in outer areas of cities – it has been reported in some developing cities that “the percentage of roads having sidewalks is generally less than 5% in small and medium sized cities”^[24];

b)  Pedestrian needs are subjugated to vehicle needs and footways are often utilised, legally (China, Hanoi (for motorcycles) etc) or illegally (many examples but including Lima, Bogota, Cairo, etc) for parking of private cars;

c)  Footways are reduced to make way for road widening and increased vehicular capacity (reported from India);

d)  Capacities of footways do not meet pedestrian volumes-demands in city centres, close to rail or bus stations etc;

e)  Where footways are provided, they are often encumbered by street traders, pavement dwellers (estimated at some 35% of footway surface in Indian cities) and disrupted by poor maintenance.  Thus, footways can be unusable by pedestrians causing them to walk in the road at risk of accident and impeding traffic.  There have been instances in some cities where street traders have been forcibly removed with little regard for their persons or their livelihood.  While it is accepted that street traders are an inconvenience to pedestrians and do often cause obstruction, it is the duty of the traffic management agency to seek a balanced policy to free the footway while meeting reasonable needs of the street traders;

f)  Footways are obstructed by illegal encroachment by shop owners beyond their frontage limits (e.g. Colombo);

g)  Footways lack continuity with frequent breaks for accesses to frontages premises and businesses;

h)  Public utilities (water, drainage, phones etc) are often located under the footway and repairs and replacements to utilities are often carried out with little regard for pedestrians or for satisfactory reinstatement after works;