Page 30 - Trafficinfratech Magazine April 2023 Digital Edition

FOCUS

Gender focused

sustainable transport

A lot needs to be done to improve bus transportation for
women and create a safe, reliable, accessible and affordable

travel journey, states Sonal Shah, expert on Sustainable and
Gender Equitable Transport.

You have been brief on Women and Transport the last four and a half years, we
contributing to quality in Indian Cities back in 2017, the have institutionalized a gender lens
in mobility and public first of its kind in India. We made in mass transit projects through
transport especially for concrete recommendations on Gender Equality and Social
women. What have been gender-inclusive mobility indicators Inclusion Action Plans. We have
the prime drivers in this that could be introduced in also prepared a Women’s Access
transition? comprehensive mobility plans. and Mobility Plan (WAMP) for 3
cities in Bihar: Patna, Gaya and
My journey with gender and About The Urban Catalysts Muzaffarpur, which is another first
cities started very early. Actually, The Urban Catalysts was for India, and are going to publish
I got interested in feminist studies incorporated in 2018, and over this research soon.
back in architecture school, and
also pursued it in my graduate
education. But the opportunity to
work on gender and mobility really
came when I was working with
WRI India. The main catalyst at
that time was the rape and death
of a young woman in a bus in
Delhi, and it really highlighted how
transport was unsafe for women
and therefore a few of us in WRI
India began to think about what
could be done.
When the masterplan for Mumbai
was getting revised, I had the
opportunity to look at how gender
could be incorporated in it. We also
managed to incorporate gender
inclusive urban planning guidelines
in the URDPFI guidelines, a first for
India. Additionally, I led a team to
fundraise for a project on women’s
safety in public transport in Bhopal.
When I was in ITDP, our efforts got
crystalized into co-creating a policy

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