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The street should be designed for the pedestrian
San Francisco street
The most pathetic fellow in this city of warped priorities is the pedestrian. He (forget she for she has no right on the mean streets of Dhaka) has no space and scope to be a pedestrian.
The sidewalk (or the footpath) is the supreme mark of the civility of a city; it belongs to the culture of walking, strolling and promenading. The quality of sidewalks gives evidence to what the city managers think about a fundamental human condition: The pedestrian and his humanity. Dhaka shows no such conceptions. It's a city where driving a car has become an essential symbol, and the poor pedestrian just a pitiable creature at the bottom of the totem-pole. Such urban pedestrian devices as boulevards, promenades, riverwalks, just simple sidewalks with various activities that are the hallmark of all great cities - Paris, Florence, New York, Istanbul, and Hong Kong, even our neighbouring Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, and Kolkata - are completely non-existent in Dhaka. The only decent sidewalks are in Sher-e-Banglanagar, and that is because they were conceived by a humanist American architect.
A sidewalk is not the extension of a drain, nor is it a three feet wide cover over it; it is a space by itself. It need not be a concrete
- Sidewalk is a sign of civility.
- Where are the promenades, esplanades, and avenues?
- Covered walkways?
- Where, in fact, is the sidewalk in the city?
- Where is the art of the streetscape?
cover always. It can have many material variations; it can be overgrown with grass to reduce heat gain (as many sidewalks in Honolulu are). It can have canopies or be covered (as many footpaths in Kolkata are). Sometimes it can be broad enough to be an urban place with small gardens, benches to sit upon, with urban activities such as a café and newspaper stand. In many cities, a whole automobile street is pedestrianised for certain part of the day or week on a regular basis (as is the case outside Bangla Academy only during the Ekushey Boi Mela). A sidewalk in Dhaka will continue to be used for multiple reasons especially for portable commerce and as sleeping areas for many at night, still a sidewalk culture should be developed and maintained by proper regulations that embraces both the pleasure of walking and social interaction as well as the commerce of vendors.
The pedestrian and the sidewalk is ultimately an indictment on the car, on its ultimate effect on the natural environment (through pollution, etc.), urban exchange (disintegration of the public realm), and social interaction (segregation of classes). Wealth and automobile do not have to go hand in hand. Hong Kong is a good example where an integrated planning approach has succeeded in maintaining low automobile dependency despite Hong Kong's high per capita income and population density. The success of Hong Kong's pedestrianisation was possible due to the integrated network of pathways that separate car and pedestrian, and allow those pathways and sidewalks to be spaces of their own. A successful pedestrian infrastructure means relying mostly on a set of public transportation such as railways, buses, vans, trams, ferries (as has happened in Lerner's Curitiba), and such public spaces as elevated and moving walkways, tunnels, footbridges and regular sidewalks.
An example for Dhaka: The whole length of Elephant Road may be pedestrianised with multiple level parking buildings at either end. Along the middle of what is the street now, there could be small gardens, shade giving trees, fountains, benches, designated areas for vendors and street performers. Shopping at Elephant Road will gain a new meaning and so will the experience of the pedestrian.