Articles by Vedant Mhatre

Three days before I began writing this article, a bench of Bombay High Court judges criticised the BMC for its inaction in clearing hawkers from railway station areas across Mumbai while addressing a petition. Sadly, this isn't the first time the court has heard such a petition. A simple Google News search for "Bombay High Court hawkers" over the past 20 years brings up over 14,000 results, showing how often this issue has been raised. Recently, BEST also came under fire for removing buses from routes affected by hawker encroachments in Borivali. Clearly, the unregulated presence of hawkers is widely…

Over nine months, we at Walking Project in Mumbai hosted 25 community walks across various neighbourhoods in the city. In groups of 10–15 people, walking across different neighbourhoods, we discussed walkability, educated citizens about the guidelines which dictate the design of walking spaces nationwide, and advocated for urban planning that prioritises walking, among other topics. One of the key highlights of this initiative was the ranking system we developed for the routes we walked. During each walk, we asked participants to rate their route based on specific walkability criteria. This allowed us to create a ranking of the best and…

Recently, a plethora of articles have flooded in both digital and print media regarding a downward spiral in the BEST bus fleet size. The numbers have fallen from 3749 in 2016 to 2959 at the end of last year. While the attention this issue receives is certainly warranted, let’s not overlook the broader transportation landscape of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). The MMR spans an area of 6328 km², which is 14 times larger than Mumbai which falls under BMC limits (also known as Greater Mumbai). It comprises 18 urban local bodies and over a thousand villages forming a contiguous labour market around the Greater…

Over the past two decades there has been much political posturing about turning various Indian cities into a ‘Singapore or Shanghai’. While we may have mimicked the glass and steel façade buildings, airports and some freeways, why is it that we have not been able to mimic the public realm and walkability aspects of these and other cities? Is it the municipal bodies and politicians who are responsible for the sorry state of pedestrian infrastructure and the public realm? Or do we, as a society, hold pedestrians in disdain?  Providing a great walking experience is one of the easiest (and…