Crosswalk Safe in Pune: Parisar designs 8 junctions for safer transit

Parisar with the support of AXA Business Services and Local cooperators is undertaking the improvement for pedestrian safety in the urban vicinity of Pune city with reference to Pune Pedestrian Policy, Urban Street Design Guidelines (USDG) and NACTO Global Street Design Guidelines.

The primary objective of this initiative is to reduce the road accident trauma (deaths and serious injuries) to vulnerable road users in the city of Pune by 30-50% through a comprehensive set of actions, wherein the primary vulnerable road users are categorized as (i) pedestrians (ii) cyclists and (iii) motorcycle/two-wheeler users.

Crosswalk-Safe project is undertaken to improve pedestrian safety in different ways i.e. to make it safe where pedestrians tends to cross the streets. Those are usually the Junction crossings in urban neighborhoods and Mid-Blocks crossings on urban streets. Around 25 to 30 junctions in areas such as Viman Nagar, Senapati Bapat Road, Karve Nagar and Kothrud are shortlisted for improvement. All these areas have mixed-use neighborhood clusters with proximity to schools and sufficient amount of pedestrian footfall. We are using technical details, logics, elements specifically thought and designed for road safety to make this junctions safe for pedestrians such as minimizing channelizer/ slip lane, compacting the junctions by curbing the turning radius, provisions of refuse islands wherever necessary, organizing the junctions geometry, maintaining the pedestrian crossing / walking desire lines, maintaining continuity with the junction, Zebra crossing with bold stops lines, rumbles strips before the junctions to slow down the vehicles, wide median with median refuse space, signage’s, bulb-outs, defined turnings, reclaiming the unused or abandoned space for the pedestrians, addressing the blind spots.

Poster Panel of overall proposal for web

The proposals are tailor made, contextual and site specific. The proposed design initially demonstrates soft interventions which can be done using temporary paint marking, curb stones or traffic cones etc. The design shall be first demonstrated with these temporary measures to check if it works well. The proposals and designs will be updated based on the feedbacks after monitoring and evaluating the demonstrated interventions for further improvement in final hard interventions when necessary.

Viman Nagar Stakeholder engagement meeting conducted for Junction redesign project. 

Parisar with the support of AXA Business Services and Local corporator Mrs. Mukta Arjun Jagtap is undertaking the improvement for pedestrian safety on junctions in Viman Nagar neighborhood area with respect to Pune Pedestrian Policy, Pune Urban Street Design Guidelines (USDG) and NACTO Global Street Design Guidelines.

The proposals prepared by Parisar and AXA in 2018- 2019, for the pedestrian safety on junctions improvement undertaking, has now been taken ahead for the discussions with stakeholders for its approvals. A stakeholder’s engagement meeting was conducted on 8th February 2021 by the Viman Nagar Ward Corporator Mrs. Mukta Arjun Jagtap (BJP) for the presentation of the proposals and to discuss the way forward for the implementation of the project. 

Stakeholders present were Ranjit Gadgil (Programme Director) and UD. Ar. Aditya Chawande from Parisar and AXA, Executives from Bajaj FinServ, EE. Anand Rao Katkar, JE. Rajeshri Murade and UD. Ar. Vikrant Shinde from PMC Road Department, ACP. Pole and PI. Pravin Gurav from Traffic Police Department Yerwada, Local citizens.

Viman Nagar Meeting

The proposals are presented and discussed with above stakeholders and submitted the project file to the concerned departments for scrutiny and approvals by the Corporator. The Corporator has requested PMC commissioner to implement the proposals from self-budget or utilize CSR funds from Bajaj FinServ under BOT.