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The “walkmobile” was invented by Hermann Knoflacher, Professor at the Institute of Transportation at Vienna University of Technology. It is a simple frame made of wood and has the size of a car. A belt makes it easy to walk around with this frame. The idea of the “walkmobile” is to show how much space a car needs and how much city space we are willing to cut from public space and give it away to the group of car drivers. This results in streets where the whole width is reserved for cars and motorbikes, leaving almost no space to pedestrians - as seen on many streets in Pune. If all the pedestrians would walk around with a “walkmobile” occupying the same space as a car, our footpaths will be very fast as congested as streets are today.

I was riding on a bus which was trying to find a route through two-wheelers, cars and poor pedestrians through the core city area of Pune hoping to reach our destination in time. It was early morning and we were already facing heavy congestion. I was reading the Times of India (dated 5^th Nov. ’09) and an article titled “Traffic Dept. turns its attention to Peth areas” caught my eye since it came as a pleasant surprise: it talked about “congestion charges” for automobiles!