Padayatricks, taking place on 7th February 2015 from 10:00 am - 01:00 pm is an event centred around the 'Pedestrian in the City'. Participants will include enthusiasts, designers, NGOs, stakeholders around Ahmedabad city.
The event consists of Introduction of the book 'The Walker and The City' by Prof. Manuel Joao Ramos, Vice-director of the Centre of International Studies, ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon and Co-editor of the book followed by brief presentations by external participants of their initiatives and launch of a student competition for identifying problems and solutions taking a case study of road junctions in the city.
Padayatricks! Empowering the Pedestrian
Seminar @ IITGN, February 7th, 2015
Walking is not only a primordial human tool for motion. It is an essential cognitive and socializing tool. It is also a formidable means to personal health and well-being.
The progressive motorization of societies has led to a dramatic imbalance between people's needs for walking and the spatial, organizational and statutory demands of gas-powered vehicles. It has resulted in a multitude of public health issues (either traumas caused from direct impact or pollution-related diseases), and in the ghettoization of pedestrians in the public space of urban areas.
Most public health and mobility specialists agree today that the unrestricted use of privately owned and used motor vehicles in cities is a major social and economic strain that can only be tackled through a systematic, sustained and inclusive policies of promotion of softer modes of transportation, and the rebalancing of the needs of mobility with those of accessibility.
Such policies are better pursued when rested upon the convergent tools of structural redesign of public spaces, of education, of enforcement, and of better legal protection of fragile road users. But to be truly effective, this paradigm shift requires public awareness and the mobilization of decision-makers, law-enforcers, experts in social sciences and technology, and interested stake-holders from the civil society.
This Seminar proposes to do just that: create a forum for discussion and intervention that reflects on the problems and needs of pedestrians in Ahmedabad as a means to bring in a more sustainable vision for the mobility of the city.
- Vikas Sahay, Joint Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad City
- Amit Sheth, CEO, Mind's Eye Design Pvt. Ltd
- Gauri Wagenaar, danaeconsultancy
- Arjit Soni, Director, MYBYK
- Anuj Malhotra, Executive Director, Centre For Green Mobility
- Kiran Sethi, The Riverside School, Founder - aProCh
- Priyanka Prasad, Coordinator - aProCh
- Kirti Zala, The Riverside School, Coordinator - aProCh
- Neena Mehta, The Riverside School, Coordinator - aProCh
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- Manuel Ramos, Visiting Professor from ISCTE, Lisbon
- Dinesh Korjan, Adjunct Faculty, Design Centre
- Rajagopalan Srinivasan, Professor, Chemical Engineering
- Meera M. Sunny, Assistant Professor, Cognitive Psychology
- Krishna Prasad Miyapuram, Assistant Professor, Cognitive Science