AP youngsters beat Centre ‘Smartly’

By SNV Sudhir

Visakhapatnam, June 20, 2014: The union government is yet to finalise the actual concept of ‘Smart City’, which AP chief minister, N Chandrababu Naidu assured, 14 such cities in the state, but Seemandhra youngsters have already got onto the ground and started designing the concept literally right from the scratch.

They want, even streets in the new Mega Cities and Smart Cities that are going to be virgin and fresh be designed properly allowing all the stakeholders like private vehicles, public transport, pedestrians and also hawkers, on them.

A group got “Seemandhra Street Design’ done by renowned Non Motorized Transport (NMT) expert in the country, Sandeep Gandhi. They have also showed interest in finalizing the plant variety for better greenery without obstructing traffic and pedestrians.

“While we have specifications of designs for laying a highway, unfortunately, we don’t have anything such for normal streets and internal roads of a town and city. If these streets and roads are organised in a better manner, it makes a smarter city,” said Suresh Raju of Vaada Foundation that has designed Seemandhra Streets.

The NMT expert in the presentation has suggested to use narrow “columnar” trees, where pavement space is limited and also those that can be “pruned bottom-up” to allow vision clearance.

He also suggested universal accessibility is required for all sidewalks, crossings, parks, public spaces and amenities – for people using wheelchairs, strollers, walkers, crutches, handcarts, bicycles, aged people, visually or hearing impaired, and pedestrians with temporary mobility impairment or injury.

“Fences are futile if placed on the median. The best use of medians is planting of trees, which will reduce Heat Island effect and ambient temperature for the street and increasing its ecological value by treating and filtering storm water on site. With these plantations we can actually reduce temperatures by at least 2 to 3 degrees.  Our chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s son Lokesh is also very keen on this concept, after he went through it. We hope the new state government takes it up and the new capital with these designs will be the role model for all the smart cities planned by the union government,” added Raju.

The design work was also recently sent to the union urban development ministry that was given the mandate of creating smart cities across the country.