We think it is important to make public spaces safe for both men and women, for people from all age groups, and to make our streets and public spaces into places of comfort that can be used by anyone – office-goers, home-makers, college students and school children.
To better understand how comfortness and safety can be achieved in public spaces we read about this a bit. We found that in public spaces around the world the safety factors usually include good visibility and lighting on footpaths, access to public transport, clear signages, maintenance of trees so that they do not block lamp-posts, and so on.
What do you think makes a street or public space safe? If you could tell us about a street/public space where your experience was comfortable/enjoyable or one where you felt unsafe, we’d like for us to collate these experiences to arrive at what works best for most of us in Indian cities.
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Urban squares it can be of any form or shape but junctions and nodes can cater the situation. I wont say about Mumbai, but Navi Mumbai is safe. In Mumbai I can only say about queen's necklace. Since I live in Mumbai, we all know that it is a lively city because of the fact that it never goes to sleep. So collectively the city is safe. But.. when we talk about spaces.. landscape and street furnitures also play an important role to lay the urban as well as cultural fabric.. along with the nodes and junctions if we plan a proper punctures /pockets for landscape. It will be helpful in making space safe... also when we talk about planning there are very less amount of lights and an elongated vista in the terms of isovist... which makes the space safe during day time but unfortunately those spaces tend to be unsafe due to lack of street lights. Sidewalks and pedestrians would also contribute on a very huge level for that matter. Considering the fact that... people will change their lifestyle according to the way as design.... design and planning evolves mindset and psychology and behavioural pattern of human species.
Proper lighting. I feel unsafe on roads and spaces where there is no human movement and vehicular movement. Metro and parks feel safe to me. Though chaos is also not good. It makes the space unsafe. Like bust terminals that are haphazardly planned, there is no order of movement. I also find it so difficult to cross roads during evenings due to bad urban planning especially junctions and roads. I sometimes feel we all have to do something about all these but how?
Make more walk friendly space with lesser blind spots. I live in a city in Malaysia called Semenyih. there is no such safe space in the city. The nearest public area needs to drive a car since it doesn't have walking pavement and it's far from housing/residential. They promote more on using individual vehicle rather to walk.
Presence of people. There is a place called Sarafa in Indore which is a food market that opens in night. But there are people all around that makes the place feel safe for all. It is a two way thing, if the place would feel safe then only people will be present there.
Narrow lanes make me feel uncomfortable. I do not feel safe in Delhi but there are other cities in which I do feel safe. Specifically cities like Bangalore and Kolkata, even during the night time.
Alive streets with more people. In Bangalore there are streets with people but the streets are not designed, street furniture and other things which make the streets alive are absent. Only few streets are designed, M.G.Road is one of them.