Roads as Chasms and Crosswalks as Rickety Planks

Today September 22 2016 is World Car Free Day.

Vidyadhar Date wrote on his FB wall on December 29 2015:
"Apart from terrorists, the traffic police may be seen as a serious security threat to Churchgate railway station in Mumbai. They have put up barricades with the words traffic police inscribed on them on the footpath on the eastern side. This means a situation can worsen in case of a terrorist attack or some other calamity. Hundreds and thousands of people come out of the station constantly. Basic norms demand that for such a huge outflow there should be maximum points of exit. But with such tactics the authorities seem bent on funneling the people through the narrow underpass, treating them like cattle, causing them the maximum inconvenience.

The police, it seems, are posing this serious threat merely for the convenience of a few motorists passing along Maharshi Karve Roa road. The idea is that people do not come out of the footpath onto the road. Suppose there is security threat in the rush hour the situation will be particularly grave because then even the lucky ones coming out on the road will not be able to cross the road as the traffic light is usually switched off here . This switching off enables a constant flow of vehicular traffic while blocking pedestrians, posing a grave threat to their lives..." 

Artist: Karl Jilg for Swedish Road Administration

As Vox notes, "By depicting roads as chasms and crosswalks as rickety planks spanning them, [Jilg] shows just how lopsided the the proportions of a normal urban street corner really are." (more on it here http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/one-cartoon-that-highlights-how-much-public-space-we-sacrifice-for-cars--ZyVySum_sx)