In Delhi, pedestrians forced to walk on roads as pavements turn into parking lots

When Amit’s house owner told him he could park his car on a pavement right outside a residential neighbourhood in west Delhi’s Janakpuri, there was a hurdle. The pavement was at least six inches higher than the road and Amit’s hatchback didn’t have the ground clearance.

Amit glanced around and knew what to do. Like nearly two dozen other residents who had parked their cars atop the kilometre-long pavement, Amit arranged sand and cement to build a slope by the evening.

It was a risk-free parking spot right across the high walls of Tihar Jail. “Municipal authorities demolish the slopes once every few months, but we rebuild them at a tiny cost,” says Amit, refusing to share his second name.

Amit is among the vehicle owners of Delhi who play a big part in denying pedestrians their rightful space. The lack of enforcement due to multiplicity of authorities will ensure his car is almost never towed away or challaned.

For the traffic police, who have the authority to prosecute and even tow away the vehicle, the stretch is not their priority. “There are no traffic jams on that road, so we can’t waste our limited resources,” says a traffic police officer.

The public works department (PWD), which is in charge of the road, says it is not authorised to prosecute such vehicle owners. As authorities pass the buck, pedestrians have to walk on the road and are under the constant threat of being mowed down by fast-moving vehicles.

And this is not an isolated incident. Across Delhi, vehicles are rampantly claiming pedestrian spaces. Nearly two pedestrians are killed and seven reported injured every day on an average in the national capital.

Sewa Ram, a road safety expert and a professor of transport planning at the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), says owners of vehicles parked on footpaths are actually committing group murders by breaking the continuity of walkers and forcing them to take to the already dangerous roads.

It is not that every other illegally parked vehicle in Delhi is as lucky as Amit’s car. Last year, Delhi Traffic Police prosecuted 133 vehicles every hour for illegal parking, a 7% increase over the previous year. In terms of prosecutions, illegal parking is only second to challans issued for riding without helmets.

While there is no separate data on how many of these vehicles are parked on footpaths, Alok Kumar, joint commissioner of police (traffic), said the figure was “sizeable”.

“We can be towing away vehicles all day long, but motorists will continue to park them at the same spot because they don’t want to walk. For our pedestrians to be able to walk, vehicle owners will have to walk,” says JCP Kumar.

But Kumar’s opinion doesn’t resonate with vehicle owners. On the road along the Kailash Colony metro station in south Delhi, employers and employees of private firms park their vehicles outside their offices, leaving no space for pedestrians.

At the automobile repair market in west Delhi’s Virender Nagar, over a kilometre of the road is encroached upon by the business. “We are in the car-repairing business. Where should I keep the vehicles I repair?” asks a businessman. Forget pedestrians, there is often even no space for two vehicles to cross.

Be it the City Super Market in South Extension or the busy Sagarpur market, parked vehicles is common to the city.

“There have been occasions when car owners have made me feel as if I was at the wrong spot,” says Lata Dwivedi, a woman who frequents the Sagarpur market.

Another traffic police officer said the only feasible solution to “reclaiming the footpath from vehicle owners” was conducting frequent joint anti-encroachment drives with municipalities.

“The penalties for illegal parking under the Motor Vehicle Act are restricted to ₹100-600. But the municipal corporations penalise as per the weight of the vehicles. That is a better deterrent,” says the officer.

Last year, the two authorities conducted 640 such joint exercises, prosecuting 1.27 lakh motorists. But with a daily average of less than two such joint drives, it isn’t enough deterrent, the officer says.

The municipalities say they have a limited role to play and that the onus lies with the traffic police. “We cannot prosecute stationary vehicles unless we tow them away. And we have limited space to keep the towed vehicles,” says an official with the South Delhi Municipal Corporation.

Another official with the North Delhi Municipal Corporation says their role is limited in any case. “Only roads with a width of 60 feet or lesser belong to us. Most of those are internal roads and do not have pavements for pedestrians,” says the official, adding the traffic police and the PWD should be more active.

A PWD official counters, saying the agency neither has the authority nor the resources to act against vehicles parked on pavements. “We have to approach the MCDs or traffic police each time we want encroachments removed,” says the official.V

Vehicles, especially, two-wheelers, moving on pavements is another problem. Be it Sikandra Road near Mandi House or the roads leading to ITO, or Vikas Marg in east Delhi, motorcyclists are frequently seen driving on pavements during rush hours.

The traffic police say they prosecute such motorists but their officers deployed at such busy stretches are often caught up in regulating traffic rather than ensuring a vehicle-free footpath.

While the authorities continue to debate about the right approach to deal with the problem, Sewa Ram has an easier solution. “The law should allow vehicle owners to be prosecuted for dangerous driving rather than illegal parking,” he says.