Bengaluru Moving Purpose Climate Lab

Challenge

Bengaluru, India faces exacerbating air pollution, traffic congestion and cumbersome commutes. 

In the metropolitan area, the average citizen spends more than 240 hours stuck in traffic every year. These severe delays pervade every aspect of life- citizens are less productive, air is dirtier, and goods and services are more expensive. With COVID19 and concerns for safety and hygiene, private vehicle sales have catapulted.  Meanwhile, Bengaluru’s existing transportation options lack necessary safety and accessibility measures for women, such as well-lit paths and basic infrastructure. While existing city campaigns promise to improve transportation infrastructure, without the public holding them accountable, progress on this issue remains slow.

Approach

With quarantine emphasizing physical and mental health, the pandemic increased interest in Non-Motorised Transport (NMT) in India.

Purpose Climate Lab saw the opportunity to activate this increased interest around opportunities in Bengaluru, with particular motivation coming from government agencies such as the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) and initiatives such as the Sustainable Urban Mobility Accord (SUMA) projects and pedestrianisation project—Church Street First.

These projects strengthen citizen participation in decision making around urban design and development, and more importantly ensure women are at the table as well. Similarly, enthusiastic and engaged citizen-led communities have also made decision making participative and redistributed equity to address commuter concerns of marginalized communities, especially of women.

Theory of Change

Working in collaboration with Bengaluru-based civil society organisations, Purpose Climate Lab launched the Bengaluru Moving campaign to make the city more pedestrian-friendly, with 3 primary goals:

1. Grow public will and support for accessible, safe public transport—specifically, Non-Motorised Transport (NMTs)

2. Increase citizen access to participatory planning for safe and accessible NMTs

3. Develop and popularise a clear ask for key decision makers around more accessible, and safer, post-COVID NMTs commitment

The campaign was led by our partners at Sensing Local and Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC), and was rooted in the idea that city-wide narratives are strengthened by active dialogue and engagement by communities at the hyperlocal level. 

Branding

#BengaluruMoving takes inspiration from the labyrinth of routes that form Bengaluru’s roadways. The logo mimics letters from the Kannada alphabet to reflect the essence of Bengaluru eclectic/versatile character. The wordmark is a starting point in a visual system that is aimed at (young, tech-savvy) Bangaloreans. With a focus on NMT and women’s safety, the campaign uses energetic colours that are vibrant, yet soft enough to appeal to our primary audience.

Street Art

“Malleshwaram Hogona” or “Let’s go to Malleshwaram” was born through a collaboration with a city-based public art collective—Geechu Galu. By collaborating with various artists, these engagements were able to amplify hyperlocal narratives.

13 Bengaluru-based artists used public art as a medium to enhance pedestrian experience through the neglected conservancy lanes of Malleshwaram. This engagement built upon the work being done in Malleshwaram by Bengaluru Moving’s official partner. The project was supported by community partners, Malleshwaram Social, who liaised with residents and local government. See the full playlist featuring the various art projects and artists here.

City Walking Engagement

The Malleshwaram Hogona physical and digital map, created in collaboration with artist Maanvi Kapur, acted as a guide for citizens to walk and explore the 13 public art projects throughout Malleshwaram. 

In addition, a series of walking tours along the street art trail was planned in collaboration with local tour partners, Gully Tours. The first in the series was a virtual street art tour.

Influencer Engagement

The Bengaluru Moving campaign partnered with several influencers in order to explore Non-Motorised Transport (NMT) and local narratives with new voices and content. 

Collaborations included: 

“Cycling In The Most Traffic Congested City In The World!” Youtube video by content creators Nikhil Kini and Suraj Devraj: Vloggers and residents of Bengaluru, Nikhil & Suraj spent a day riding their bicycles through the city and capturing what it means to run errands on a bicycle, all in a quick 9-minute video – linked above. 

“Experience of cycling” Illustrated series by illustrator and designer Alicia Souza: A series of comical illustrations that portray the joys of cycling with stories curated from her audience.

“Cycling in Bangalore” Podcast by Sanjay Manaktala: Indian-American standup comedian, Sanjay Manaktala, spoke to four women from the IT/IT-adjacent sector, about experiences and issues they have faced and solutions that can be implemented to make mobility more gender sensitive. Watch them chat here.

“Whats it like being a female cyclist in Bengaluru?” Video by Bengaluru Moving: Women cyclists share their experience of riding in and around Bengaluru for commute, leisure, and for health. Watch here.

Mobility Champions Fellowship

We identified and aided skilled citizen champions through the Mobility Champions Fellowship.

This 10-week curated program, by Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC), provided 15 young working professionals with an opportunity to engage with policy makers, CSOs and communities, in order to contribute their skills and knowledge towards improving mobility and transport infrastructure and policies, through research and advocacy. The 2nd cohort of fellows came from diverse backgrounds, with 50% of them holding jobs in the IT industry.

The fellows worked closely with Sensing Local on three community level projects in Malleshwaram and Doddenakundi, assisting in data collection, audit and design workshops. The fellows were mentored across 16 sessions by experts in the field. 50% of the fellows have chosen to continue assisting Sensing Local in the communities, past their fellowship term.

Cycle School for Women

Leveraging demand for Non-Mobilised Transport, we launched a series of free beginner cycling workshops to introduce women to cycling based on challenges articulated by women cyclists in Bengaluru.

The workshop minimises the barriers to entry that they face while considering cycling as a hobby or as a means of commute/transport. The workshop was held in partnership with Directorate of Urban Land Transport, who helped the campaign utilise pedestrianised streets, Pedal in Tandem, who came on board as cycling knowledge partners and Jhatkaa.org, who helped on the communication and outreach. The rising demand for the workshops demonstrated an untapped audience for NMT among women.

Press Coverage

Bengaluru Moving garnered coverage in 40+ articles in 2 languages, including in Citizen Matters, The Newsminute, and Hindustan Times.

Through Bengaluru Moving, Purpose Climate Lab was able to to build a platform for a city-wide movement for sustainable, safe and accessible mobility options.

This emerging movement caught the attention of multiple other organizations and initiatives in the city and joined forces with larger networks to bring more partners on board.

Additionally, the campaign worked to address the strong need to mobilize new audiences who can also champion the cause of sustainable mobility in the city.