My car has been in the workshop for a few days. And strangely, it has made me see my neighborhood differently.

My daughters school is barely 3 km from home. For the past few days, I have been dropping her off by cab and walking the 3 km back home. I thought it would be an easy 30-minute walk. I usually jog 5 km inside my society, so how difficult could 3 km be?

I was completely wrong.

It is around 8:30 in the morning and everyone seems to be on the edge, trying to get somewhere. I am walking on roads where footpaths either don’t exist, or when they do, they are broken, dirty and sometimes feel like traps. Where there is no footpath, I have to walk on the road, watching out for bikes and scooters zipping past me.

What surprised me most is how physically demanding a 3 km walk on the road can be. I am consistently burning more calories doing this 3 km walk than I do during my 5 km jog inside my society. It doesn’t feel like a walk. It feels like a trek.

And it made me realize how much of our everyday life happens inside a cocoon. We walk down to the parking lot, get into the car, drive to our destination, park, and walk into the building. We experience very little of what is happening at street level. I think this is also part of the reason our roads are so congested.

We aren’t necessarily choosing cars because we love driving everywhere. We are often choosing them because there is no safe or practical alternative. And there is a bigger consequence. When walking is not safe, people don’t walk. When people don’t walk, they don’t get enough everyday physical activity. We then spend money on gyms, fitness trackers and health programs trying to compensate for something that should have been built into our daily lives.

I love walking. Whenever I visit a new city, one of my favorite things to do is explore it on foot. But in our cities, walking is increasingly becoming an option only inside gated communities, malls and parks. That shouldn’t be the case. If we can make our neighborhoods safe and pleasant to walk in, we might solve more than just a mobility problem. We could reduce traffic, improve health, make our cities more accessible and perhaps even make people feel a little more connected to the places they live in.

Sometimes, fixing a city’s biggest problems may start with something as simple as making it safe to walk 3 kilometers.

Practical Tip: When I have to walk on the road, I now make sure I walk facing the oncoming traffic. It feels like one of the few things I can do to protect myself when there is no footpath. You really don’t want to be knocked down by a vehicle whose driver isn’t willing to slow down or give way to a pedestrian.


I write about hashtag#artificialintelligence | hashtag#technology | hashtag#startups | hashtag#mentoring | hashtag#leadership | hashtag#financialindependence

PS: All views are personal