Traveling through Mumbai one notices many things. One of those things is many, many pedestrians walking in the street (or on the motorway) amidst traffic (motorcycles, three-wheelers (auto-rickshaws), cars, trucks, buses, etc.). On the one had, yay? for pedestrians for reasserting their rights and transforming the whole country into a de facto shared space. Western urban planners would salivate at the sheer number of pedestrians. On the other hand, surely there is a better way here. No one is really walking long distances if they have resources. Though lots of places are relatively close together, and there are shops and vendors on the side of the street everywhere, the expectation is that, if one has money, one uses a vehicle to get between them because walking conditions are not great. Walking is certainly not pleasant.
The city is building a lot of infrastructure (Elevated Metros and Monorails as well as new freeways), but this is no European pedestrian nirvana. One looks at the side of the road, and there are only sometimes footpaths. Other times they are under construction. Often they are occupied with parked vehicles or other infrastructure for the benefit of vehicles (traffic controllers, signs, streetlights, etc.) or trash. Manhole covers are left open for unsuspecting pedestrians, as if life were a Looney Tunes cartoon. The space between a pedestrian on the street and a moving vehicle can be measured in millimetres. The horns (klaxons) blasted into your ears are literally deafening.
