A Road for Everyone

I’ve been in India for one week and the one aspect of Landscape Architecture that I’m fascinated by is the street system. The streets here are used by all walks of life. It’s a place where modernism meets traditionalism; where the slow and the fast all share the road; and it works.

The philosophies of street design are very contrasting. Back in the United States, the focus is on how to minimize interaction between the pedestrian traffic and the vehicular traffic. Here, it seems that there is little concern whether or not the two groups are segregated or not. I think one reason this is of little concern here is that the driving philosophies are also different. In the United States people are defensive drivers and always assuming that everyone around them is an idiot. Whereas in India people assume that everyone else knows what they are doing.

At first this system seems chaotic and very dangerous, but once you understand the driving styles it makes a lot of sense. In a city with such a high density, why re-design a road system that has designated areas for different types of traffic; when that same space can be used to incorporate all types of traffic and move people through the city more efficiently? People move within a hands length of each other, be it a motorcycle, auto-rickshaw, bike, or pedestrians; they all move right alongside each other. Lines are painted on the road, but I have never seen them used. People will just as easily drive right down the middle of the line as they would drive in between the lines.

Crossing the street is another aspect of the system to get used to. There are very few crosswalks and I have yet to see someone use them, and there are certainly no pedestrian lights at the intersections. The key to crossing the road: don’t hesitate, and trust the drivers. Which seems very contrary to what we’re taught but it must be remembered that the driving philosophy here is completely opposite of ours and what we’ve grown up with. It’s rare to see someone cross the entire street at once. Usually the street has to be crossed in increments, wait for one car and then move a few yards, stop and wait for another vehicle to pass and then move another few yards, and so on until you’ve crossed the streets. Even though I’ve found myself standing in the middle of the road facing a slew of oncoming traffic, I’m not bothered by it because I have to remember that I have to trust them just as they have to trust that I’m not going to move in front of them at the last minute.

Despite all of this, I feel just as safe walking along the road here, as I do walking along a sidewalk back in the states. I have seen cars, auto-rickshaws, traditional rickshaws, motorcycles, mopeds, bike, camels, carts, people, dogs, cows, and goats; all traveling along the roads.