Tactical Urbanism

With the start of the corona virus in 2020, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs understood the importance of effectively utilizing the roads as public place, maintaining a safe distance of individuals and mobilizing the citizens in a city while aiming to reduce the issues such as congestions and traffic pollutions especially when cramped up public transport would have been further cause of spreading the contagious disease.

Understanding the need of the hour to distance the public while keeping the access to basic amenities for public intact, and promoting walking and cycling throughout the country, Ministry rolled out challenges such as India Cycle for Change Challenge (I4CCC), Streets for People Challenge (S4P) and Nurturing neighborhood challenge (NNC). These initiatives led a moment of change in 100+ cities in India to promote the Walking and cycling by providing Infrastructure for the same.

Such infrastructure requires large funding and with the possibility of it being a road block, pilot testing the infrastructure using “tactical urbanism” as a tool many cities were able to transform the large spans of infrastructure in very less funds for a temporary time period with the help of subject experts and volunteers. This provided an idea to citizens and the officials of how streets can be much more interactive and people friendly.

Nagpur not just participated in this competition but aced it and was shortlisted in the top 11 cities amongst 100s of the participating cities. Another Earthling Studio worked with the Nodal officer from NSSCDCL in arranging a citywide competition, handling social media posts, conducting walking audits, engaging with the stakeholders, shortlisting entries, arranging and conducting jury sessions and further executing the tactical urbanism trial one in the busiest market area in Nagpur i.e. Sitabuldi and a Neighborhood area i.e. Sakkardara area in front of the lake.

We segregated the vending zone, walking zone and vehicular lane to make the pedestrian movement safer by painting the walkable areas using bright colors. We placed makeshift pots, planters and benches to segregate the vehicular movement. This intervention allowed the city to experience a well-organized market place that provides an equitable space distribution for all the road users.

The Neighborhood site was a connecting street consisting of a lake on one side, a heritage temple on the other side, a garden on another side of the road, an adjoining neighborhood with food stalls and vendors. We converted the street into a pedestrian friendly street with vibrant colors and patterns while reclaiming the space from streets.

We invited self-help groups and women empowerment groups to set up stalls to promote smaller businesses and community gatherings at spaces lying idle throughout the day such as parking lots in front of Sakkardara garden. Painting interesting play areas such as snake and ladder pattern, hopscotch, follow the thread games on the floors so the children engage in the interactive activities.

Placemaking has also been done at old Nagpur area in Mahal where one side of carriage way was reclaimed from vehicles and developed into a safe space for pedestrians. With vibrant colors and interesting patterns painted on the street, heritage walk conducted with Hon. Mayor of Nagpur and several residents of Mahal participated actively in the ongoing activities.