Rediscovering Happiness on our Streets.

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happy afternoon namaste

i was eight years old when my parents

decided to relocate from kerala where

this green picture was april to generate

from the houses of kerala i was

introduced to the compact apartment

the lack of space was crossfit for the

eight-year-old

i didn’t know then that i was lucky to

in fact have a roof over my head

but i quickly rediscovered my happiness

and i rediscovered my happiness on my

streets

i loved running to the corner store i

found happiness enough independence

i loved lying outside on the street side

park right outside my apartment and

staring in that solid sky

i found happiness in the greenery that

surrounded me

i loved cycling with my friends a little

further away doing course for my mother

i found happiness when the wind blew

through my hair

and i’m sure each one of you can think

of these wonderful childhood memories of

happiness associated with the streets

outside your home

however as i was growing up

my stream started transforming

first

traffic increased on my street

the city decided to widen my state it

ate my food park first and then the park

outside my home

my cherished park was replaced by

parking very quickly

once when we were cycling back

my friend was hit by a tooth by

two-wheeler and that was the end of our

fighting days

the city was widening streets not just

in my neighborhood but

in

neighborhoods across the city and it was

not just in case of chennai cities

across the country in order to resolve

traffic congestion by building wider

roads and more flywords

puzzled by this challenge

i went on to do my masters in urban

design to find solutions

in the university i rediscovered habits

i began to learn about cities that were

embracing radically different solutions

solutions where they were able to get

their citizens and smile back onto the

streets

we ran from cities like seoul that had

created this beautiful waterfront bang

in the center of the city with very good

public transport connectivity and can

you imagine

by breaking down a six kilometer

elevated road is unimaginable even today

in india

we read about cities like senior in

spain which have a growing car culture

with less than one

less than one percent of cycling trips

but it created a network of 80

kilometers of safe cycling and separated

cycle tracks in a matter of just two

years increasing the cycling motion by

lennon ford

with a lot of

patience perseverance and determination

i came back to india

hoping to do my bit although a little

bit whatever that i can do to transform

our cities

and bring the happiness back onto our

streets

first we began by breaking the big myth

building wider roads and more flyers is

not going to help us resolve traffic

congestion

here i’d like to give you an example of

day this is a flyover a day

and let me tell you this is not the only

fly with it

then he has 84 flyovers and continues to

be one of the most congested cities in

the world

research has shown that the more number

of space the more amount of space that

you create on the board it quickly

magnetizes traffic traffic is just going

to keep increasing and as traffic

increases what are we losing

if each one of you spends one hour stuck

in traffic in the morning and evening

every day of the year you are losing 30

days of your life per year that’s time

that you could have spent with your

beloved family your friends at work

along with that as we are widening votes

the speeds on the roads are increasing

and the result of which we are losing

lives

every year we lose 1 black 50 000 likes

in the country

and not just that we’re putting the

future of our children at stake young

children beyond the age of five years

breathe two to three times more they’re

taking two to three times more than

number of breath per minute

and these children will grow up not only

to have standard growth but also poor

cognitive ability

it is impacting the future of our entire

country

so

how can we make sure that our citizens

are able to move in our cities buy

efficiently and effectively without

destroying our planet

and that solution rise

exactly in our data

diving deeper into data we realize that

73 of all trips in our cities are by

walk cycle and public transportation yet

we need to ignore these modes of

transport and focus only on moving the

five percent of trips which happen on

cars

we have been focusing on how we can make

walk cycle and public transport

facebook how the users can use it

happily peacefully safely comfortably

and conveniently such that they remain

using these modes and it attracts more

users users who don’t use those modes to

use these modes by choice

we’ve been working with a bunch of

cities across the country and i’m here

to share their journey

have been

introducing or creating streets for

people

these are streets which are not only

computes for moving vehicles and parking

but these are streets where our children

where our women where our elderly and

our persons with disability can walk

safely

these are streets where we can play

these are streets where we can sit down

and enjoy your weight loss

cheney has created 150 kilometers off

these streets and aims to double up in

the coming few years

it has created a pedestrian planner this

street that you see right now was in the

past like this this is the very street

that has been transformed by reclaiming

two-thirds of its space for walking

cycling etc

along with this many cities across the

country like delhi

uh champion chopping delhi

in indore eight lakes in colorado many

many cities are embracing number one

creating streets for people

two they’re looking at introducing

cycles for change

these cities are creating

networks of stage fighting tracks on

streets which have high speeds and

they’re making their neighborhoods safer

for cycling as well

so an example is pony a city that has

created a plan for 400 kilometers of

safe cycling roads

i would also like to give you an example

of pokemon a heavy city that is breaking

the stereotypes and it is making sure

that you can actually cycle even in any

regions

this city is not only

for focusing on creating safe

infrastructure but it’s also bringing

infrastructure or other programs such as

teaching people to cycle through cycle

training clinics because sometimes many

women and others might not know how to

cycle two they are creating cycle

sharing in cycle trends and schemes so

that people who don’t have access to

cycles can also access them

and three they’re also creating cycles

different clinics so those

who have all cycles have not used it for

many many years can repair it and start

using their password

finally these cities are embracing

transport for all

these cities are looking at how can they

strengthen and augment the public

transport as well as mars transit

network in their cities they’re bringing

in more buses greener buses and taking

them out of congestion so that buses can

move faster

this is an example of bangalore a city

that has six thousand buckets to service

the needs of its citizens and you can

also introduce the bus priority lane to

move it out of conjunction so that it

citizens can move faster

with this program citizens were able to

save 15 minutes of their journey and the

bus ridership increased by threefold in

just six weeks

pony is another city that is greening

its feet today it has 150 electric buses

and it plans to bring 500 new buses as

well

so

as we stand here and as we look at these

cities over the last decades a few big

cities have taken action in the right

state

at the brink of this decade we need to

do much more this is the decade of

scale-up so let me share with you the

journey of how these cities

reached here

these cities inspired their decision

makers political leaders by showing

change on the ground and as you can see

in this picture

they did this very very quickly by first

just using very cost effective

quick measures this is an example of

kohima which just in 72 hours

transformed a parking lot right in the

heart of the city and converted it into

a public space where they had a piano in

the center where people were singing

their next as the inspiration is said

they looked at how they can catalyze

this inspiration into creating tangible

transformation on the ground

and while they were working with the

cities on creating this change they

engage with all their users

from decision makers to political

leaders to non-profit organizations

technical organizations academic

institutions children elderly shoppers

vendors all the stakeholders in their

city they engage with everyone they look

at how they get embedded this change in

the longer term by adopting policies

which set a vision for the future and

finally they are investing in building

their own capacity of the staff by

expanding and focusing on setting the

right institutions as well

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so

i’m beginning to rediscover my happiness

and i’m rediscovering the happiness when

i see these children playing on the

streets

i rediscover happiness when i see these

young families cycling on the streets

and in fact i brought me back in and i

now find my happiness once again when

the breeze flows through my hair

i’m rediscovering happiness when i see

women

confidently moving out across the entire

city even at night

as i stand here

i request each one of you to do your bit

in supporting your cities create streets

for people

introduce cycles with change and

embrace transport for all

we need to do this just like mahatma

gandhiji said

let us be the change that we want to see

outside

so

i introduced a request y’all maybe for

short trips lose walk or cycle or maybe

just use public transportation once a

week i’m sure you will come up with many

many ideas to embrace this particular

change

as helen keller said

although we can do so little but

together if we all come together

we can do a lot more

let us rediscover happiness on our

streets and let us ensure that our

children rediscover happiness on ps3

jay

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