When Chandigarh paused to let us cross

In a move that's part surprise and part long overdue, the Chandigarh Road Safety Committee has approved countdown timers at 45 major junctions across the city—all with heavy foot and vehicular traffic.

- Aashna Gakhar

On paper, it's a small tweak. But for anyone who's ever sprinted across a roundabout or played traffic roulette near Sector 26's grain market, it signals something rare: that pedestrians may finally be entering the urban planning conversation.

A city that planned the path, but forgot the pedestrian. Chandigarh—the city that walks in straight lines—has never quite figured out how to walk with its people. Le Corbusier's 1950s utopia was designed to be pedestrian-friendly: verdant green belts, quiet pathways, and the now-iconic V1 to V8 road hierarchy. It was meant to be a city where walking wasn't just possible—it was pleasurable.

But somewhere between the dream and the diesel, Chandigarh became a car's city. Most of us have either bolted between Sector 17 and 22, praying traffic halts, or tiptoed across intersections hoping drivers acknowledge zebra crossings as more than street art.

The green belts remain, but often feel like disconnected veins—overgrown, underlit and poorly linked to commercial areas.