An example from India: STREETS FOR ALL

Streets for All Program & Raahgiri Day

The Streets for All initiative is a sustained community movement towards the provision of better and safer walking and cycling infrastructure in our city. It provides a platform for engagement between government, media, NGOs, technocrats and the community, in order to jointly develop workable solutions to improve the safety and mobility conditions on our streets. Streets for All could be a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly open streets event when select streets are opened up for the exclusive use of pedestrians, cyclists, and other users of non-motorised transport (NMT). 

Following the success of Colombia’s Ciclovía, which began in Bogotá in 1976, similar open streets initiatives have spread to at least 110 cities worldwide. The initiative started as Raahgiri Day in Gurgaon in 2013, one of the first successful open streets events in India. It has been replicated and adopted under different names in several cities across India with new events taking place weekly. 

Such initiatives have been successful in helping cities understand the importance of cycling, thus implement safe cycling infrastructure and projects like public bicycle sharing.