PROGRAMS - ENVIRONMENT

 TOBACCO CONTROL | ROADS FOR PEOPLE | GENDER| ECOCITY

A commentary on footpaths (sidewalks)

While the World Bank has recommended that footpaths be cleared of all obstacles--they particularly seem to mean vendors--we completely disagree with this highly uninformed view of the problem. People avoid empty sidewalks for obvious reasons: they are unsafe (likely to be dens of crime) and they're no fun. People want to be where other people are, and one of the great incentives for walking is the chance to look at objects and other people. Vendors, when they take up only one part of the sidewalk, can actually increase foot traffic. The same, of course, cannot be said of genuine obstacles, such as sidewalks-cum-latrines, sidewalks-cum-car parks, and sidewalks-cum-dumps.

Here the vendors are placed adjacent to the sidewalk, attracting but not deterring pedestrians. The presence of a good number of rickshaws, rather than noisy and smelly motorized vehicles, on the street is of course a further inducement to walk.

Lots of vendors and trees makes a great place to walk!

Again, the vendors attract pedestrians, but take up little enough space that people can move freely.

Then we have the opposite situation: cars (and occasionally even motorcycles--as happens in Hanoi, where street vendors are banned but motorcycles are allowed to park all over the sidewalks) completely blocking the sidewalk and forcing people to walk in the street. Unsafe, and an unwise allocation of space. Surely what the World Bank should be recommending is a ban on car parking on sidewalks, not a ban on the poor making their living in a way that encourages people's free movement? (Hmm, what analogy do we see to the rickshaw ban?  Surely the World Bank doesn't have a pro-rich, anti-poor bias?)

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Footpath