Sidewalks and Pedestrians Play Important Role in a City
*Dr. RM. Petrus Natalivan Indradjati ST. MT., (right) in a talk show with Elshinta Bandung, Monday (10/9/2018).
*Dr. RM. Petrus Natalivan Indradjati ST. MT., (right) in a talk show with Elshinta Bandung, Monday (10/9/2018).?
BANDUNG, itb.ac.id – Sidewalks and pedestrians play important role in a city. Number of pedestrians on street may even indicate livableness of a city. It was conveyed by Dr. RM. Petrus Natalivan Indradjati ST. MT., from Urban Planning and Development Research Group of School of Architecture, Planning and Policy Development of ITB in a talk show with Elshinta Bandung that carried the theme “Sidewalks, the Neglected Right of Pedestrians”, on Monday (10/9/2018).
“An expert once said that the good or bad of a city are seen from the life on its streets. If the streets are chaotic, the city is actually chaotic, which means that streets do not only represent transportation system but also the socio-economy of the city,” he said.
Dr. Petrus explained that according to his research on sidewalks on Bandung, there are several interesting matters. Theoretically, good and attractive facility will encourage people to have physical activities such as exercise and walking. However, several revitalized sidewalks are rarely used by pedestrians. This phenomenon shows that mere facility does not sufficient to make people walk.
“It turns out, physical or design variables do not contribute enough to make people take a walk. The dominant variable is the socio-economy because there are groups of people who walk for economy reason such as not having any vehicle,” he said.
According to a research conducted to Braga, Astana Anyar, Sarijadi and Margahayu, an interesting conclusion was found that people will walk after they received health verdict from doctor which force them to do walking activity to prevent worse health condition.
“It explains why revitalized sidewalks are rarely used. This means it is not sufficient to simply provide walking facility because we also have to add other variables,” he said.
Other interesting phenomenon found in Bandung is the habit of using motorcycles to reach a mere 100 meter-far place. Researches by WHO and Indonesia Ministry of Health stated that physical inactivity related diseases increase and contribute to increasing percentage of death.
“Heart disease, obesity, diabetes and so on are increasing due to lack of physical activity. This should be realized by our society. Physical activities such as walking should be important part of daily life. The process of building community awareness is interesting,” he said.
He thinks that there should be a change to the mindset of the community. Walking should not be a necessity but instead a part of life. Several cities overseas has designed systems that force their citizens to walk. “Because the more busy someone is, the less time for exercise they have. One way to do it is to unconsciously force people to walk, from station to office, and so on,” he concluded.
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