Midblock Crosswalks
Supported by Parisar, Other CSO’s and PMC NMT Committee members.
As part of Pune Road Safety Campaign announced by the then Mayor Hon'ble Mrs. Mukta Tilak, Pune Municipal Corporation has agreed to build Mid-Block Pedestrian Crossings on 100km of divided arterial streets to improve safety of pedestrians while crossing at mid-blocks in the city of Pune. Parisar is working with Pune City administration PMC to help design and execute safer midblock crossings.
Why is the project needed?
As per the MoRTH report of 2019, pedestrian deaths in the country in 2018 were 22,656 and in 2019 with an increase by 14.13% were 25,858 in the last year and the number of deaths on junctions are 39,728.
Since looking at the current city’s road infrastructure and tendency of Indian drivers, pedestrian’s rights on the streets are disrespected thus pedestrians figure out a very hard time on the streets, especially while crossing. On Divided arterial street, Junctions are the only and preferred option which is considered slightly safer to cross the street but many times due to the longer distance between the two junctions (long detour length) pedestrians are left with no option other than to cross in the middle of the streets and are exposed to accidents risking their life. Also, the city consists of many such locations with distinct land-use such as schools, hospitals, public gardens, public spaces, markets street, religious places where pedestrians’ counts are higher and they prefer to cross the roads at closest openings where safety becomes a must.
It is observed that the current midblock crossings on divided streets are not in compliance with IRC standards and they are unsafe for pedestrians due to its poor visibility of signages, poor designs of refuge spaces at divider, bikes and cars are parked at crossings, absence of caution signals, road markings and traffic calming measures.
To improve the condition on the streets for both pedestrians and other road users, well-designed Mid-Block crossings based on Safe-by-Design approach are required to cross the street at mid-blocks safely and conveniently reducing the detour length. The Pune Pedestrian policy also has the provision of providing mid-block crossings as per IRC 103:2012 recommending mid-block crossings at an interval of 80m to 150m. According to the Motor Vehicle Amendment Act of 2019, road standards such as IRC prescribed by the Central Government are now mandatory.
Objectives
- Survey and analysis of the issues of midblock crossing on the identified divided streets.
- Identify and propose the locations for the midblock crossing wherever required in the city.
- Preparing designs templates midblock crossing based on Safe-by-Design approach in compliance with standards of IRC and guidelines of Pune’s Pedestrian Policy, Pune-USDG, NACTO-GSGDG.
- Ensuring that the design toolkit (a simple set of design options for various conditions) developed for midblock crossings based on the designed templates under this project is followed further for the future implementation of the midblock crossings in the city.
- Corrective retrofit measures on existing midblock crossings are implemented wherever necessary.
Identified Divided Streets
Map and table have 12 divided streets of Pune city identified with its total lengths to implement mid-block pedestrians’ crossings under the Pune Road Safety Campaign. The first phase of divided streets combined length is approximately 45 kms out of the total 100kms package identified by PMC with a total number of existing intersections 117 identified, creating a block size of approx. 380m. As per IRC, it is recommended to have midblock crossings at an interval of 80m to 150m based on requirements. The remaining 55km streets package will be identified in phase 2.
Budget Proposed by PMC NMT Committee
As per IRC 103:2012, considering mid-block crossing at 150m intervals, the required number of mid-block crossings will be approximately 400 nos. for 100 kms divided streets, of which approximately 180 nos. mid-block crossings are in the first phase of the selected 12 arterial streets. The existing midblock crossings will be retrofitted with the provided design templates. Considering the average cost of construction of 3 lakhs for 1 mid-block crossing for both the types (at-grade and raised). The total required budget for this midblock will be approximately 12 crores for 400 midblock crossings proposed to Pune Municipal Corporation which were accepted to be reserved partly in every year's budget.
Design Templates
Street type- 24m Right of Way and both side Parking
Pilot Proposal
Lal Bahadur Shastri Road- 24m Wide ROW, Divided street with both side Parking.
Pilot Intervention: implementation of mid-block crossing on Lal Bahadur Shastri Road
On Pune Pedestrian’ Day, PMC had implemented the first pilot of the Raised Pedestrian Midblock crossing on Lal Bahadur Shastri Road as per the proposed design template.
