On Pedestrian day, Citizens pledged to walk only on footpath
PUNE, India – Oct 02, 2016 – City based Global Shapers Pune celebrated Pedestrian day at more than eight major junctions within Pune and PCMC. Taking inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi’s Dandi March, they wanted to encourage citizens of Pune to join a movement of Road safety and awareness. “Mahatma Gandhi walked for whole nation, while we requested citizens to walk for their own safety and healthy life on his Birthday.” said Devendra Jani, Shaper at Global Shapers Pune who headed this project. While the whole India was working on Swatch Bharat (Clean India) movement, Pune Shapers were working to clean road mess in our city. They approached citizens to take a pledge – ‘Whenever we walk, we only walk on footpath and whenever we drive, we only drive on road’.
Their objective was to encourage citizens to embrace walking in daily life, survey footpaths and signing campaign for a Pedestrian Friendly Pune. They educated citizens about Schools & Hospitals falling under ‘No Horn Zone’ and made them aware that honking is illegal outside hospitals. They also appreciated those citizens who were wearing helmet, seat belt and following rules by giving them Hi-five. Through different junctions they managed to reach more than 9000 citizens with the help of 70 volunteers. More than 200 citizens signed the pledge. Citizens whole heartily appreciated volunteers and requested to do more of such campaigns to make Pune’s roads safer for Pedestrians.
Initially, when the campaign started it was planned for just one junction. But after Facebook invite was created, it got tremendous response and decided to take place in eight major road junctions across the city. Improve My City team (IMC) team walked 12 KMs and reported 160 pothole issues on corporation site. Kids from Labour camp gave ‘Thank You’ notes to people who wore helmets, and motivated them to keep this good habit alive. Roshini NGO along with Dr .D. Y. Patil Institute of Engineering & Technology, Pimpri also came together to create awareness about pedestrian safety, traffic management solutions to ensure safe movement of pedestrians. Pedestrian day was just a trigger and it turned to be a moment when they were joined by young change makers from LetsRISE at Deccan Road junction, Volunteers of Swachh Pune and Mentors from Mentor Together at Magarpatta Road, Army Institute of Technology at PCMC Wadi junction, Faza Foundatoin Pune team at Kharadi Junction, TFI fellow at JM road junction, EcoAd at City Pride Junction and Improve My City team (IMC) at Dange Junction.
Traffic Police Department was actively involved at all the junctions and approved the campaign without any delay. “We are planning for similar drive in Pune and would like to invite such active youth groups to join us and spread Road Safety awareness across Pune” said Dr. Pravin Mundhe, DCP Traffic (IPS). We also collaborated with Joy of Giving (Daan Utsav) Pune team, where we have sent more than 3 hours in each junction for this activity. This initiative was also supported by Global Shapers across India viz. Imphal Hub, Chandigarh hub, Surat hub and Ahmadabad hub.
