WRI India worked closely with the city government and others to redesign roads and protect vulnerable pedestrians from car traffic. The move will save lives and encourage more sustainable transport.
The Challenge
Bengaluru, India has faced an alarming rise in pedestrian fatalities, averaging over 650 road traffic deaths annually in recent years. A big reason is that road designs throughout the city prioritize cars over people, while many streets lack safe crossings for pedestrians. Children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable.
As the sixth-most congested city in the world, Bengaluru’s rapid growth and heavy traffic have only worsened road safety concerns, affecting residents’ mobility and overall quality of life. Without redesigning its public spaces, Bengaluru is unlikely to meet its commitment of reducing road deaths 50% by 2030.
WRI’s Role
WRI India helped guide Bengaluru’s municipal body, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), to support people-centric street redesigns.
WRI India provided technical assistance to BBMP to develop the Suraksha75 initiative, which used data to identify 75 critical junctions for redesign based on criteria such as number of crashes and pedestrian volume. The city has since added another 25 intersections to the list. The team worked to reform how street improvement projects are proposed and implemented in Bengaluru, including by updating procurement processes, providing research on best practices for prioritizing safety over aesthetics, and facilitating ongoing stakeholder engagement. WRI also provided design support for specific road safety interventions like pedestrian footpaths, conducted capacity-building workshops, and collaborated with traffic engineers, urban planners and local civic organizations.
The Outcome
Bengaluru invested over $128 million in sustainable road safety projects, marking a significant shift from vehicle-centric road development to urban planning that puts people’s safety first.
The Suraksha75 initiative led to the redesign of over 100 high-risk intersections and more than 150 kilometers of pedestrian-friendly streets, aiming to drastically reduce road traffic injuries, especially for vulnerable groups such as pedestrians, cyclists and the elderly. Key changes include expanded and accessible footpaths, safer pedestrian crossings, wider roads, and the introduction of refuge islands — road medians that provide a safe place for people to wait while crossing busy streets. As of late 2024, 39 intersections were under construction, with completion expected by 2025.
BBMP established a dedicated team to ensure continued collaboration between design experts, consultants, communities and other road safety stakeholders. With updated guidelines and a focus on functional safety improvements over aesthetics — for example, ensuring that landscaping and other beautification elements do not prevent vulnerable pedestrians from accessing safe pause points while crossing busy roads — the program embedded new design standards into the city’s planning processes.
BBMP is now scaling this approach to a broader corridor improvement project that includes the redevelopment of 324 kilometers of streets. The success of Suraksha75 has also inspired other Indian cities, such as Delhi, to adopt similar road safety programs.