As a part of the Directorate of Urban Land Transport’s Sustainable Urban Mobility Accord (SUMA), residents of Malleswaram, in Bengaluru, are putting the first step forward in ensuring the area is pedestrian-friendly again. As many as 70 residents participated in a ‘walking audit’ over Saturday and Sunday. The ‘walking audit’ is an initiative led by Malleswaram Urban Living Lab, a citizen group, in a collaboration with two other citizens’ groups, Malleswaram Social and Sensing Local.

Aimed at creating a safe pedestrian network in Malleswaram, the audit involves the assessment of existing infrastructure and identifying problem areas. Based on data collected, with photographs, a plan will be drawn to make the locality more pedestrian-friendly. It also aims to provide solutions to the problems faced by senior citizens, due to traffic congestions, faulty footpaths and lanes.

In the course of a year, work will be done on an 11-km stretch from Sankey Tank to MKK Road. The residents of the locality recorded multiple issues like missing kerbs, broken pavements, unmarked speed breakers, in the locality during the audit of three wards: Aramane Nagar, Malleswaram and Kadu Malleswara.

Suchitra Deep of Malleswaram Social told The Hindu that they have completed two sessions of the audit and will take up further sessions in the evening hours to ascertain the status of street lighting.

Meanwhile, Sobia of Malleswaram Urban Living Lab told DH that many including architects, designers apart from citizens are a part of this initiative, who are divided into teams and each will audit a stretch of two km and gather information about the locality.

They have begun a design workshop under the project as well; many young architects have signed up, she said. Behavioural, tactical and structural interventions will be devised for the existing problems, and reports will be submitted to the Directorate of Urban Land Transport, and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike will further implement the changes recommended.