How Accessible Are Low-Income Settlements?

The enduring image of a city is a busy population always on the move. Yet, as this assessment by the Centre for Science and Environment shows, mobility in Indian cities is severely hampered by a wide range of constraints: inadequate public transport and lack of access to it, less-than-ideal last-mile connectivity and non-motorized transport facilities, and lack of adequate streets—the spine of settlement structure.

 

These problems are compounded by urban designs and planning that do not pay enough attention to the needs of low-income settlements, resulting in densely packed neighbourhoods that are a nightmare to navigate; built farther and farther away from centres of economic opportunity and services within the city. We must realize that this is not a problem of the poor alone. Such exclusion will also distance cities from sustainable mobility solutions that emerge from the travel patterns of the poor. 

 

This report traverses through the multiple issues ailing mobility in Delhi (as a case study) in search of a way out.