How does one walk in this city? It's a question I ask myself often, whenever I am compelled to get from Point A to B without access to a vehicle. Petrol costs make private vehicles increasingly expensive for most Indians to manage, while public transport continues to be a joke. Most cities with this problem would have focused a large amount of energy and resources on walking, because that is what our grandparents did. Our government and the agencies that supposedly work for it consistently focus on the opposite. Everything — from the Sealink to massive projects like a coastal road — is about making life more convenient for Mumbaikars who have enough money to drive. The majority do not, and will never be able to afford a private vehicle but, unfortunately, anything that benefits the common man is never as good for publicity as things that make the lives of the rich a little more convenient.

This is probably why our traffic police recently urged the BMC to free up space under flyovers across the city to facilitate the smooth movement of vehicles. They want to remove bottlenecks near bridges, apparently, and increase the width of carriageways so the carrying capacity of our roads can be increased. It doesn't matter if common sense dictates that our roads should carry fewer, not more vehicles, that our city's green cover is being systematically eroded to make way for more roads, or that the space left for most of us to walk has only decreased over the past couple of years. The only things that now matter are motorists and drivers.
I suppose this wouldn't be as serious an issue as I make it out to be if we actually had roads worth walking on. The fact is we don't, and never have. Thousands of crores are poured, literally, into giving us roads that barely last a few months, that are routinely encroached upon by hawkers, and that continue to be a very serious health hazard to the young, infirm, differently abled, and senior citizens. If you don't believe me, ask one of your older relatives to walk down a street of your choice and take note of his or her comments.