Bridging the Gap: An Integrated Framework for Multimodal Mobility and Sustainable Street Design in Rapidly Urbanizing India
Keywords:
Multimodal Mobility, Complete Streets, Sustainable Transport, Street Planning, Tier-2 City, India, Last-Mile ConnectivityAbstract
Rapid urbanization in India has intensified challenges related to mobility, environmental quality, and social equity, with Tier-2 cities facing particularly acute pressures due to limited planning capacity and fragmented institutional frameworks. This paper develops and tests an integrated street-level planning framework for Durg, Chhattisgarh a representative Tier-2 Indian city undergoing rapid spatial transformation to promote equitable and sustainable multimodal mobility. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the study evaluates twelve street segments through infrastructure audits, traffic analysis, user surveys (n=150), and stakeholder interviews. Findings reveal that motorized private vehicles account for 72% of daily trips, while cycling infrastructure is completely absent, footpaths are discontinuous in 70% of surveyed segments, and public transport share remains alarmingly low at 2.7%. Socially, vulnerable groups including women, elderly, and persons with disabilities face significant barriers to safe mobility, with 76% of users reporting exclusion from comfortable street access. Institutional analysis reveals fragmented governance across eight departments with no unified street management authority, and the Durg-Bhilai Master Plan 2031 lacks street-level design guidance for 7 out of 9 critical components. The paper proposes an integrated framework synthesizing Complete Streets principles, multimodal integration, Tactical Urbanism, and participatory planning mechanisms. Drawing on successful precedents from Nagpur's Wardha Road transformation, Bengaluru's TenderSURE initiative, and Delhi's pedestrianization experiments, the framework offers a replicable model for sustainable mobility transformation in rapidly urbanizing Tier-2 Indian cities.
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