Tactical Urbanism (TU) trials are temporary, quick and relatively low-cost interventions, which test out urban design, transportation planning and infrastructural changes for improving road safety for all road users, especially the most vulnerable, like pedestrians, cyclists and other non-motorised transport users.
Tactical Urbanism/ Tactical Redesign methods constitute a comprehensive trial run to anticipate potential issues, conflicts, and drawbacks for longer term full-scale projects. Its methods help access aspects of a program or project, down to the smallest detail, prior to embarking on actions that require large political or financial investments that are neither modifiable nor reversible. Inclusive in nature, Tactical Redesigning takes into account suggestions and feedback from a host of stakeholders, connected communities, and key experts to undertake its interventions, and make the subsequent final recommendations. The primarily local and grassroots-related nature of Tactical Redesign interventions helps it absorb a host of social and cultural values. Through this, Tactical Redesign interventions prove to be an excellent canvas for experimenting reactions to stimuli-based behavioural changes towards the interventions introduced. While the conventional approach of designing is cost intensive and ambiguous in terms of its efficiency, the approaches undertaken as a part of Tactical Redesigning ensure that only tried and tested changes based on end user feedback are adopted. By bringing together a host of people closely connected to the site under consideration, Tactical Redesign–the deliberate, phased approach to instigating change–also fosters a sense of cooperation, joint ownership and responsibility towards shared spaces and resources.
Tactical Urbanism/ Tactical Redesign uses various techniques and methods to improve and redesign street infrastructure at crash prone areas to ensure road safety for end users, especially the Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs). It draws attention to perceived shortcomings in policy and physical design, and through its interventions, allows people to experience first-hand alternate options. This allows for a significant amount of public engagement including demonstrated preferences to interventions as opposed to stated preferences, which may be divergent to one another. Tactical Redesigning is a set of outcome-oriented actions that can be expanded pan India across various high-fatality and dangerous intersections/stretches as a bottom-up approach.
The concept is applicable to a vast hierarchy of roads including both urban and rural roads, highways and local roads, and industrial as well as school zones. The very essence of Tactical Redesign lies in creating experiment-based space usage paradigms that are capable of providing a more equitable usage of spaces and resources.
