Beyond the Weather: Urban Form and Active Mobility. The case of eight Indian cities

In the bustling streets of India, a quiet revolution is already underway, though it often goes unnoticed by city planners. Millions of people walk and cycle every day, not because they have chosen a healthy lifestyle or an eco-friendly commute, but because they have no other option. This daily movement, known as active travel, forms the backbone of urban life for the country's low-income residents, who cannot afford cars or reliable public transport. For decades, a common belief has held that India's extreme weather—scorching heat, heavy monsoon rains, and high humidity—is the primary reason why walking and cycling infrastructure remains so poor. The argument goes that the climate is simply too harsh for people to walk comfortably, so cities focus their limited resources on building roads for vehicles instead. This perspective treats the weather as an unchangeable force of nature that dictates how people move, suggesting that until the climate cools down, investment in footpaths and bike lanes is a waste of time.

However, a new study challenges this long-held assumption, suggesting that the weather is not the barrier people think it is. The research focuses on the physical shape of a city—how buildings are arranged, how close homes are to shops and jobs, and how connected the streets are. These factors, collectively called urban form, are often overlooked in favor of blaming the climate. The study asks a simple but profound question: if people are already walking in the hottest and wettest cities, what is actually stopping them from walking more? By looking at data from eight major Indian cities, the researchers set out to see if the weather really dictates how many people walk, or if the design of the city itself is the true driver.

The researchers examined eight diverse Indian cities, ranging from the arid, hot plains of Ahmedabad to the tropical, rainy coasts of Mumbai and Kochi. They gathered data on how many people in each city walk or cycle to get to work, and they compared these numbers against two main sets of factors. First, they looked at the weather, tracking the average temperature and the amount of rain each city received over ten years. Second, they analyzed the built environment, measuring how much of the street area was covered by buildings and roads versus how much was covered by trees. They used satellite images to count the green canopy above the streets and to map out how densely packed the buildings were, creating a clear picture of what each city actually looked like from above.

The results were striking and overturned the usual narrative. The study found no significant link between the weather and how many people walked or cycled. Cities with mild temperatures and plenty of rain did not necessarily have higher walking rates, nor did the hottest, driest cities have the lowest. In fact, the data showed that temperature and rainfall had almost no relationship with the number of people choosing to walk. Instead, the single strongest factor was the density of the built environment. Cities where buildings, shops, and homes were packed closely together, creating short distances between daily destinations, had the highest rates of walking and cycling. The researchers found that in these dense areas, people walked simply because their destinations were nearby, regardless of whether the sun was blazing or the rain was pouring.

To understand this, one can look at the specific cases the study highlighted. Ahmedabad, a city known for its extreme summer heat that often exceeds 40 degrees Celsius, still sees 36 percent of its trips made on foot or by bicycle. Despite the intense weather, the city's dense layout and mixed-use neighborhoods mean that markets, schools, and workplaces are close to where people live, making walking the only practical choice for many. Similarly, Mumbai, which faces heavy monsoon floods and high humidity, maintains a 33 percent active travel share. The city's high density and extensive public transport system force millions of commuters to walk the final stretch of their journey, a necessity that weather cannot easily override.

In contrast, the city of Chandigarh offers a different story. It is famous for its wide, tree-lined avenues and a mild, pleasant climate, with the highest amount of tree cover among the cities studied. By all traditional accounts, it should be a walker's paradise. Yet, it has the lowest walking rate of all, at just 13 percent. The reason lies in its design: Chandigarh was built on a grid of large, separate sectors where homes, offices, and markets are often far apart. The city was designed to separate cars from pedestrians, but in doing so, it made walking impractical for most daily trips. Even with shade and cool air, the long distances between destinations mean that people must drive, proving that a pleasant climate cannot compensate for a city layout that forces long journeys.

The study also looked at Kochi, a coastal city with heavy rainfall and high tree cover, which surprisingly had a low walking rate. The researchers found that the city's geography, broken up by water bodies and islands, fragmented the urban fabric and made it difficult to create continuous walking networks. This reinforced the idea that the physical structure of the city—how it is connected and how close things are to each other—matters far more than the weather. The presence of trees, while beneficial for comfort, did not automatically lead to more walking if the underlying street network was disconnected or if destinations were too far away.

The authors argue that the focus on weather has been a distraction, a way for planners to avoid the harder work of redesigning cities. They suggest that the decision to walk is not a matter of comfort but of necessity and opportunity. For the millions of low-income workers, women, and informal employees who walk every day, the lack of safe, shaded, and continuous footpaths is a matter of health and safety, not just convenience. The study points out that in cities like Singapore, which has a hot and wet climate similar to Mumbai, planners have successfully built hundreds of kilometers of covered walkways, treating the roof over the sidewalk as essential infrastructure. This proves that extreme weather can be engineered around if the political will and design intent are there.

Ultimately, the paper concludes that the barrier to active travel in Indian cities is not the climate, but the urban form. The high rates of walking that already exist are driven by the density of the city and the proximity of daily needs, not by a choice to be healthy or green. The researchers urge city planners to stop asking if people will walk in the heat and start asking how to design cities where walking is the rational, safe, and easy choice for everyone. By shifting the focus from blaming the weather to fixing the streets, cities can create environments where the millions of people who already walk are supported, rather than forced to navigate hostile conditions. The solution lies not in waiting for the weather to change, but in building the networks that make walking possible for the people who need it most.