Rediscovering Happiness on our Streets.
[Music]
[Music]
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
[Music]
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
[Music]