The Smart Cities Mission, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, held a kick-off event for the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge in collaboration with the Netherlands-based Bernard van Leer Foundation (BvLF) and with the technical support of WRI India.

Over the last decade, WRI India, through its various programs, has come up with different methods in their street design initiatives to make them streets universally accessible and safe.

As part of post-pandemic sustainable mobility designs, cycling tracks, seamless connectivity in the cycling district, and several place-making themes have been included as part of the road works. WRI India consultants are on-site to handhold and guide with the drawings, implementation and design.

The Mobility Champions programme, hosted by Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) in partnership with the #BengaluruMoving campaign, World Resources Institute India (WRI) and Let Me Breathe (LMB), has proposed three solutions aimed at solving Bengaluru’s traffic woes. The programme, which started on July 25, has worked with 12 young residents of the city – to suggest mobility solutions and garner support from policy makers and citizens.

"For India to plan investments in buildings efficiency as a means of economic recovery, collaboration and trust between national and subnational, state and non-state actors is critical," write Sumedha Malaviyaand Tirthankar Mandal from the WRI India Energy program

Intensifying its conservation efforts for the Hussain Sagar, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) is working on installing a floating boom barrier at the picket nala to arrest flow of floating trash into the lake. To this effect, a tripartite agreement has been signed between the HMDA, WRI India and DESMI to install the boom barrier for cleaning up floating solid waste from the Picket drain near Hussain Sagar (KIMS pond area) as a pilot demonstration project,

Jaya Dhindaw, Director, Integrated Urban Planning, WRI India Ross Center points out - “There is a real need for more public spaces. The existing ones are already very crammed. Public spaces could be explored inside institutions with large landholdings and big campuses, such as schools, colleges and the likes of the Indian Institute of Science. The existing local parks should be open for the public the entire day, closing only during the night. More people can be accommodated this way. More neighbourhood parks and open spaces, accessible by walk and cycling, are critical even from a mental health perspective."
 

Redesigning safer and healthier urban spaces for young people is the subject of a recent study by Nikita Luke, Rohit Tak, Ariadne Samios and Claudia Adriazola-Steil from the World Research Institute (WRI). 

Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) strengthens its conservation efforts for the Hussain Sagar, and is working on installing a floating barrier line at the Picket nala to stop the flow of floating garbage into the lake. To this end, a tripartite agreement has been signed between the HMDA, WRI India and DESMI to set up the barrier line for cleaning floating solid waste from the Picket drain near Hussain Sagar (KIMS dam area) as a pilot demonstration project.

Around 60,000 children die in road accidents in India every year, many of them as pedestrians.In Gurugram, outside Delhi, WRI India found that many children were afraid of walking and biking to school, despite a desire to do so, while parents and teachers had high levels of stress about the daily journey to and from school.  In a study in Mumbai, WRI India used a "photo-voice" method to gather direct feedback from children on their experience of a school area to better understand how to help them safely experience and navigate their streets.

Three busy traffic intersections, witnessing multiple fatalities in the past, have undergone major makeovers and turned pedestrian-friendly. “A large unutilised space in the middle of the junction was converted into a universally accessible refuge plaza. Besides pedestrian safety, this plaza also helps streamline traffic,” said an expert from World Resources Institute India, which has tied up with the BMC for transforming junctions under the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety.

The e-ticketing app of Delhi government''s Transport department is expected to cover all 6,600 public transport buses by the first week of November, Transport minister Kailash Gahlot said on Tuesday. Gahlot said features like its usage by non-smartphone users to buy tickets and issuing of daily and monthly passes are being incorporated into the app, that has completed its second phase trial. 

It was suggested that TOD (transport oriented development), the Revised Master Plan and the City mobility plan be integrated and aligned so that traffic and infrastructure are equally distributed across the city. The recommendations are a result of the #BengaluruMoving campaign.

WRI India has partnered with Mumbai Traffic Police and Mumbai Municipal Corporation to audit and improve high-risk intersections across the city such as the HP Petrol Pump intersection in Bandra. Part of Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety and supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the project’s aim was to reduce the nearly 500 road fatalities every year in the city, more than 30% of which occur at intersections.

As cities look to COVID-19 recovery as a moment to reevaluate business as usual, we should consider how to better meet the special needs of young people in urban spaces. But what exactly is a “child-friendly” city? It is more than providing playgrounds. It is a commitment to improving the lives of children by realizing their human rights as articulated in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and considering their needs in public policy processes and decisions.

"There is a dire need of providing healthy water supply to the slum areas of Mumbai amid the current pandemic scenario as water supply is severely irregular, government and civic bodies are required to look into this issue at the earliest," said Rubaina Rangwala, Senior Manager, WRI India.

A research paper authored by Madhav Pai, Executive Director of WRI India Ross Centre for Sustainable Cities and two of his colleagues, research analyst Leona Nunes and senior manager Lubaina Rangwala, states that attention to station design to create more space for distancing will be key. It was recently put up in the public domain by WRI India.

Samrat Basak, Director of Urban Water, WRI India highlighted the need of incorporation of a blue green strategy for flood management and importance of collaborative government for maintaining it.

Urbanist Sahana Goswami, who works at WRI India, suggested that the BBMP move from focusing on grey infrastructure to blue-green solutions. “Our preliminary research has also revealed that the built-up area of the City has gone up by 65 per cent in the last 15 years. But, about 50% of the new development has taken place in the low-lying areas where there are high recharge potentials,” she said.

दिल्ली, मुंबई, बेंगलुरू, कोलकाता और कोच्चि जैसे महानगरों में मेट्रो अब परिवहन का मुख्य साधन है। अब लखनऊ, जयपुर जैसे टियर-टू शहरों में भी इसका विस्तार हो रहा है लेकिन इन शहरों में यात्रियों की संख्या के लिहाज से मेट्रो सेवा को अपेक्षित सफलता नहीं मिल पाई है।