Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, home to 1.4 million
people.
The city’s architecture reflects the country’s past as part of the Soviet Union.
Georgia gained independence in 1991, and is now
striving to become a member of the European Union.
But it is still a country in transition.
The Tbilisi-based pedestrian rights organization, Iare Pekhit, is working to promote the rights
of pedestrians in Georgia.
In Georgia and other Soviet states, the United Nations Democracy Fund, UNDEF,
supports the transition to democracy by funding local civil society organizations, such as
Iare Pekhit.
This is not a project about road safety.
This is a project about giving people power, particularly
pedestrian power.
It’s about putting people at the centre of society rather than cars.
In recent years the volume of traffic on the streets of Tbilisi has grown at an alarming
rate.
Legislation to meet the increased road use hasn’t moved at the same pace.
The majority of people don’t own cars but pedestrians, including the elderly and people
with disabilities, are never given priority on the streets.
Georgia has not significantly updated its traffic laws since the Soviet time so you
could say that a
lot of it is outdated and the Soviet city planning in general, urban design,
and traffic regulations were more authorities oriented because they did not emphasize the
rights of the pedestrians.
Iare Pekhit regularly organizes so-called ‘Ugly Walk Tours’ for concerned citizens
to show how difficult it can be navigating the streets of Tbilisi and discuss how to
bring about solutions.
Erekle is the father of an eight-month-old baby girl, Ana, living in an apartment building
in the centre of Tbilisi.
Moving around the city with a stroller is beset with difficulties.
Erekle wants the streets to be safer for his daughter’s future.
With Iare Pekhit, he’s encouraging support for new legislation to improve road regulations
– and therefore make it easier for pedestrians negotiating the city’s streets.
It is important to have this new law in order to avoid having situations
where there is no side walk left, no place left for pedestrians to walk,
where sidewalks all around Tbilisi are occupied by cars.
And this is the result of the fact that our current regulations and penalties are too
mild.
Sunday morning at the Iare Pekhit Office in Tbilisi.
Elene Margvelashvili, the organization’s director and her team are getting ready for
a demonstration in front of the Georgian Parliament.
“Today we are protesting with a group of different organizations all working on different
road safety issues.
The poster says 'Make road safety legal”, so make it a law, turn it into a law and to
pressure the government, to pressure the parliament, to pass this road safety law
Decision makers at Tbilisi City Hall are now realising that urban planning must become
a priority.
But now they face a new challenge: changing people’s mindsets.
It is not only the law and the enforcement that is maybe our problem,
but it is also the behaviour of the participants of our cities.
But again it must be done coupled with the media campaign that aims at raising public
awareness,
in a way to impact positively all participants and their mobility.
Through awareness raising activities by civil society organizations,
such as Iare Pekhit, Georgia’s future generations will be better informed and more mindful about
traffic rules and pedestrian’s rights.
And humans will be considered the masters of the machines, not vice versa.