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Weeks after the Supreme Court declared safe footpaths a fundamental right, Bengaluru has launched a pedestrian safety drive. Could it become a model for other cities?
Bengaluru continued to record the highest number of pedestrian deaths among India’s mega cities in 2024. (PTI Photo)
Walking in most Indian cities often means stepping off the pavement and into traffic. Footpaths disappear beneath parked vehicles, utility poles, open drains, construction debris and illegal encroachments, forcing pedestrians to compete with speeding cars and motorcycles for space on the road. The consequences are deadly.
More than 1.8 lakh pedestrians lost their lives in road crashes between 2019 and 2024, with government data showing that nearly 54% of pedestrian deaths involved collisions with cars and two-wheelers. Now, Bengaluru is attempting to reverse that trend.
Within weeks of the Supreme Court declaring the right to walk safely on a footpath a fundamental right, Karnataka has launched one of India’s most visible pedestrian safety drives. Authorities have removed encroachments across hundreds of kilometres of pavements, proposed steeper penalties for riding motorcycles on footpaths and ordered civic agencies to clear poles, cables and other obstructions from walkways.
The developments raise a bigger question: Could Bengaluru become the blueprint for other cities after the Supreme Court’s landmark ‘Right to Walk’ judgment?
What Changed After The Supreme Court Judgment
The Supreme Court ruled in June that the right to walk on safe, well-demarcated footpaths is not merely a civic convenience but a fundamental constitutional right.
The judgment arose from the tragic death of a five-year-old boy who was struck by a tanker while walking to school with his father after being forced onto the road. While deciding the compensation case, the court went much further, recognising that India’s legal framework had historically focused on vehicles rather than pedestrians.
The Bench held that the right to walk flows directly from the freedoms guaranteed under Article 19(1)(d) and the right to life under Article 21. It declared that where a road exists, governments have a corresponding duty to provide safe, clearly demarcated and well-maintained footpaths. Even more significantly, it said pedestrians’ right to walk takes priority over the movement of motorised vehicles.
The court also directed the Centre to work towards a national legal and institutional framework for pedestrian safety, recognising that fragmented municipal rules have failed to protect walkers across India’s cities.
Why Bengaluru Is Moving First
Bengaluru has become the first major metropolitan city to visibly respond to the Supreme Court’s verdict.
The Karnataka government launched a citywide ‘Safe Footpath Campaign’ in July, describing pedestrian safety as a governance priority rather than a cosmetic civic exercise. The campaign aims to reclaim pavements, improve walkability and reduce pedestrian deaths by restoring footpaths to their intended purpose.
Within the first 10 days of the drive, authorities reported clearing 490 km of footpath encroachments across Bengaluru. Officials have simultaneously proposed significantly higher penalties for riding motorcycles on footpaths and directed civic agencies to remove utility poles, cables, transformers and other permanent obstructions that force people off pavements.
The effort goes beyond removing street vendors or parked vehicles. One of Bengaluru’s longstanding problems has been fragmented pedestrian infrastructure. In many parts of the city, footpaths abruptly end, are blocked by electric poles, or disappear beneath ramps built by private property owners. Even roads designed under modern urban improvement projects often fail to provide uninterrupted pedestrian access.
Urban planners have long argued that a footpath is only useful if it functions as a continuous network. A broken pavement every few hundred metres effectively pushes pedestrians back into traffic, defeating its purpose.
Bengaluru continued to record the highest number of pedestrian deaths among India’s mega cities in 2024, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). However, the city saw some improvement, with pedestrian fatalities falling from 292 in 2023 to 246 in 2024.
Why Other Cities Still Struggle To Make Walking Safe
In Delhi, pedestrians routinely navigate broken pavements, parked vehicles, open drains and construction material that occupy whatever walking space exists. A simple stroll around Delhi reveals how non-functional most of its footpaths are. In Gurugram and Noida, many arterial roads were designed primarily for high-speed vehicular traffic, leaving pedestrians with discontinuous or non-existent footpaths.
Mumbai, despite its dense public transport network, continues to grapple with overcrowded pavements, illegal parking and encroachments, while Hyderabad faces similar problems around commercial districts and rapidly expanding suburban corridors.
According to India Status Report on Road Safety, compiled by the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre (TRIPC) at IIT Delhi, footpath availability ranges from as low as 3% in Jammu and Kashmir to about 73% in Maharashtra. In states like Bihar, Haryana and Puducherry, usable pavements remain scarce.
India has invested heavily in expressways, flyovers, Metro systems and highways over the past decade. Yet the first and last kilometre of almost every public transport journey still depends on walking.
If commuters cannot safely reach a Metro station, bus stop or railway station on foot, the efficiency of the larger transport system suffers.
Infrastructure spending reflects this imbalance. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways received Rs 3,09,875 crore in the 2026-27 Union Budget for highways and related infrastructure, while dedicated funding for pedestrian infrastructure depends on municipal budgets and city-level urban development schemes rather than a nationwide programme.
Why Indian Cities Still Prioritise Cars
The problem is not simply one of funding. Road-widening projects often consume footpaths first. Flyovers are designed to ease congestion for motorists, while pedestrians are expected to negotiate longer crossings, poorly maintained pavements or unsafe intersections.
Governance also remains fragmented. Urban roads may fall under municipal corporations, development authorities, public works departments, traffic police, Metro agencies or utility providers. When a pavement is dug up for cables or pipelines, responsibility for restoring it often becomes unclear.
Enforcement is equally inconsistent. Encroachments return because civic drives are usually one-off operations rather than continuous monitoring exercises. Utility agencies install poles on footpaths. Builders create ramps that block pedestrians. Vehicles occupy pavements with little fear of penalties.
Perhaps the biggest challenge is that pedestrians rarely command the same political attention as motorists.
A traffic jam is immediately visible. A missing footpath affects thousands of people every day but often goes unnoticed until it results in injury or death.
Can Bengaluru Become The Blueprint?
Bengaluru’s campaign is important not because it has solved India’s pedestrian crisis, but because it has demonstrated what responding quickly to the Supreme Court’s judgment can look like.
The city’s approach combines enforcement with administrative coordination. Removing encroachments alone will not create walkable cities unless pavements are rebuilt to universal design standards, maintained regularly and protected from future misuse.
Other metropolitan cities are likely to face increasing pressure to follow suit. The Supreme Court has made pedestrian rights enforceable constitutional rights rather than aspirational planning goals. That changes the conversation from civic beautification to legal obligation.
Ultimately, making Indian cities walkable is about more than constructing pavements. It requires recognising that walking is the country’s most universal mode of transport. Every commuter, Metro passenger, schoolchild and elderly citizen becomes a pedestrian at some point during the day.
About the Author
Shilpy Bisht is a News Editor at News18, where she leads the English app operations. She writes on world affairs, health, AI, career, business, and issues affecting women and children. A former print …Read More
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