FUN & PUN: Footpaths are meant for everything except to be used as footpath !!!
Do we need pedestrian pathways ??
Aijaz Ahmad Bhat (IPS)
Footpaths , hmm , the footpaths are needed but for what ?
To stroll
To reach the bus stop
To reach zebra crossing , overhead bridge or underpass , or any designated crossing facility .
To wait for someone
To feel safe from the vehicles moving on road
To shelter yourself in the the bus stands available on these footpaths from rain , snow , sun and heat
To stretch and enjoy your snack from the food counters of takeaways suitably placed without any encroachment of footpaths …
But
We use footpaths ..
To force pedestrians to see the merchandise which is displayed outside the shops and maybe trip them to land on it per force if they avoid seeing ..
To expand the floor area of our shops multiple times because footpaths have been made to occupy as much as the merchant can …
To put food carts on them in such a manner that it would be easy to put food inside the mouths of the occupants of the cars which have been stopped near the kerb of footpath quite brazenly by the uncivilised educated locals (locusts )..
To make space squeeze so that the pedestrians are forced to walk on road and slow down the traffic and thus making the road covert into a market ..
To make people hop on and hop off like a ping pong from footpath to road and road to footpath because the footpaths have to allow pathways leading to homes of the car owners because everyone owns one or two of them ..
To create space for makeshift market because our youth are unemployed and the only way out is to give them food carts which they can place on footpaths .
To allow people to purchase groceries , takeaways , hosieries, utensils , kitchenware , fruits , and even the butchers knives and all the things you can think of from the windows of their cars because we can’t park , we can’t walk , we can’t carry , and we can’t wait … we are very busy people with nothing to do ..
To allow parking our vehicles on these footpaths because nobody cares and who cares when there is acceptance for chaos ..,
To sell our second hand cars being trashed by other states because we love trash …
To encroach the public space by whatever means because for us everything stops at the gates of our houses . What’s outside our homes is there to be ransacked , pillaged and plundered … we have acceptance for free for all because we believe in freebies , subsidies and allowances rather than toiling for them …
To litter on these footpaths because the next trash bin is a few meters away ..
To use footpaths for running our two wheelers when the road gets jammed …
We do need footpaths to dry our clothes , to dry our walnuts , to dry our rice grains , to dry our chillies , brinjals, bottle gourd and even fishes ..
to store our cow dung and to store our waste …
Footpath is meant for everything except to be used as footpath ….
(STRAIGHT TALK COMMUNICATIONS EXCLUSIVE)
Bhat Ajaz.. Mr. Aijaz Bhat,👏👏👏
Your piece ✍️🎤is a sharp, insightful, and painfully accurate reflection of what has become one of the most neglected causes of urban traffic chaos. You have keenly observed how footpaths—meant for pedestrians—have been systematically encroached upon, abused, and converted into extensions of shops, parking lots, vending spaces, storage yards, and even traffic lanes.
When footpaths disappear, pedestrians are forced onto roads, reducing the effective carriageway, slowing traffic, increasing risk, and creating congestion. No amount of traffic regulation can fully succeed when public spaces meant for one purpose are routinely used for everything else.
Traffic management is not merely the responsibility of the Traffic Police. It requires civic discipline, enforcement by municipal authorities, cooperation from traders, respect for public spaces by citizens, and a collective realization that convenience for a few cannot come at the cost of inconvenience for all.
The magnitude of encroachment and indiscipline is indeed enormous. Your satirical question—“Do we need pedestrian pathways?”—forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth: in many places, footpaths are expected to serve every purpose except the one for which they were built.
A city which had no visionary town traffic urban planning what could happen after decades, number of vehicle’s versus motor-able spacd becomes civilized not by the width of its roads but by the respect it shows to its pedestrians. Reclaiming footpaths is therefore not merely a traffic issue; it is a matter of civic culture, public safety, and urban dignity.
Well articulated and thought-provoking.
Regards,
Dr. Fiaz Fazili