Changing Paradigm of Indian Footbridges: From Connectors to Destinations

The paper unfolds the journey of footbridges from the vast spectrum of India's historical, rural, peri-urban and urban context. The footbridges are studied from the lens of their need in their respective contexts, the transience or permanence of their nature, building materials and construction methodologies and how it ultimately defines their design aesthetics. It delves into the planning principles that have been considered for the footbridge like accessibility, site context integration and stakeholder range that have directly or indirectly impacted to their success or failure at multiple scales. It further goes on to discuss the morphological changes that some of the old footbridges have undergone and their adaptation or lack thereof to the needs of today's pedestrian needs. This gives an indication of the factors that dictate the premise for pedestrian infrastructure in general and the opportunities for footbridges in particular within the Indian context. It later outlines the attempts of RJB-CPL as a leading design firm in India in collaboration with structural designers to take these learning's through specific examples from their professional practice. The question that this paper presents is the need for such footbridges to commemorate places that are unique. It provokes these connections solely for the pedestrians who are the largest contributors to the modal share but remain majorly and literally side-lined on non-existent sidewalks of India. The paper also debates the notion of basing the development of cities by the measure of its ‘walkabilty' and the role that the footbridges might play viz-a-viz its vehicular counterparts. The central idea of the paper is how these destination bridges could make our cities more pedestrian friendly and inclusive in nature.

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