ENCOURAGING PEDESTRIANISATION FOR SUSTAINABLE TRANSIT ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT FOR A SMART CITY

Abstract

The cities are witnessing growth and are attracting a large population from the rural areas, medium and small town's thereby causing congestion. The increasing number of vehicles on roads is resulting to numerous accidents and inconvenience along with environmental problems and management problems leading to a chaotic state. Road traffic has amounted to 30% share in global pollution with 80 % share in the developing countries. The mobility from one place to another is an important factor in ensuring smarter and sustainable cities. There is an urgent necessity to adopt green and energy efficient transit methods and planning. Further the planning of the cities need to be supplemented by walkable neighbourhoods as well as commercial districts. - The smarter sustainable cities encourage the idea of smart walkable areas and use of cycle tracks which keep the workplaces, places of entertainment, education and - commercial use well within a certain limit from public transport. The concept of smart neighbourhoods within the smart city revolves how the cities and its open spaces can be inviting for people to prefer a pedestrian route or developing bicycle friendly transit and could further encourage to use efficient and green public transport facilities rather than using personal vehicles The open spaces in a city also include streets and roads and adjacent open spaces. The percentage of these open spaces together in a city also reflects how a city performs environmentally and how sustainable and smart the city is. However most of the Indian cities lack these open spaces that can encourage Pedestrianisation and biking thereby reducing the effectiveness of public transport.