Road widening is an unintelligent and unjust project to address traffic congestion

(A slightly revised version of  article has also been published by Deccan Herald in its Sunday edition of 24 June 2012 and is accessible here)

Recently the High Court of Karnataka held that the widening of the road from Sadashivanagar to Yeshwantpur did not violate the principle of prior and informed public consent as contained in the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act.  It accepted the Bangalore Development Authority's contention that since the proposal to widen the road to 30 metres was part of the Comprehensive Development Plan of Bangalore in 1984, it was unnecessary to inform the public every decade when this plan was revised. The High Court then claimed that “widening roads is the only means to over come traffic congestion”, even as it acknowledged that the Karnataka Directorate of Urban Land Transport's “cutting edge scientific analysis” advocated several progressive measures could be adopted to relieve traffic congestion and widening was not a solution for this road. While the import of this judgment is limited to Sadashivnagar Road, it is indicative of the thinking amongst key decision makers who believe that we can build wide roads to relieve traffic congestion in Bangalore and other urban areas.

Quite in contrast, major cities world over are working to constrict spaces for private automobile movement, especially in core city areas.  Providing safe pathways to encourage people to cycle, walk and use public transport (mainly bus based), are the new age technologies of mobility.  Seoul the capital of South Korea recently tore down a massive expressway running through its city and turned it into a pedestrian's and cyclist's delight. Curitiba in Brazil and Bogota in Colombia are South American examples of how city governments invested in low carbon intensive public transport projects, supported by walking and cycling; not car friendly (and pedestrian unfriendly) wide roads that waste millions of dollars, dismember old neighbourhoods and only aggravate the congestion problem.

Many metropolitan areas of North America are regretting having widened roads in the past to accommodate cars.  They are now energetically rebuilding cycling and pedestrian paths, and bus systems. In Boston, a network of railroads and expressways cuting through the core city was pushed underground, and the reclaimed surface turned into an 8 mile long Braddock Park Corridor filled with children's parks, cycling paths, community gardens, and what not. The result is that local economies have been energised and crime rates have dropped.  Many European cities are using innovative land use policies to protect charming old inner city neighbourhoods, rejecting car based transport, and encouraging cycling, walking and street vending.  Think Amsterdam, Dresden, Paris (yes, you can rent public cycles here).  In Africa, Durban leads.  Last year the city hosted UN Climate Change talks and its municipality acted by promoting cycling and walking, backed by a generous grant of 1,000 cycles from UNIDO to adopt the Paris rent-a-cycle initiative.

As I grew up in Bangalore, I cycled everywhere.  While it was relatively safe to cycle then, it is certainly not the case now.  The lack of foresight of our so-called urban planners has reduced cycling and walking into a death wish today.  A tragedy indeed as nowhere else in the world can we get a city like Bangalore with a climate so conducive for such health securing, money saving and carbon neutral activities. The greater tragedy is that promoting road widening, signal free corridors, elevated expressways and such other mega projects have become a mantra for ensuring political legacy.  Skewed urban imaginations promoted widening of 90 roads during S. M. Krishna's regime, which list has now grown to 216. 

All this when the National Urban Transport Policy, 2007 argues that cities must be so developed as to provide “...equitable allocation of road space with people, rather than vehicles, as its main focus”.  Were Bangalore to actually implement such policy prescriptives, the city would then intelligently re-design streets so that everyone (rich, middle class, poor and differently abled) would have an equal opportunity (physically and economically) to move within the city and with low, or no, risk to life and livelihoods.  Our City and State Governments are instead pursuing mega road widening projects that gobble thousands of crores of rupees of our money  (which we can safely assume have mega cuts for the corrupt as well), even as they admit that technical and financial viability is yet to be assessed. 

It is high time key decision makers abandon this myopic approach, step back a bit and think conscientiously with the people the wastefulness and wretchedness such projects result in.  Felling hundreds of gloriously grown avenue trees (the true heritage of Bangalore), the gross injustice of breaking down hundreds of homes and centuries old businesses (without compensation, for TDR is not), and the inhumane displacement of thousands of poor street vendors whose livelihoods are tied to the idea that streets are our multi-purpose commons, are all indicative of our disregard for democratic, inclusive and progressive urban life that the Constitution guarantees.  This is also illustrative of the rhetorical abuse of the concept of “sustainable development” to justify carbon intensive, socially unjust, unintelligent and economically unviable mega road widening projects which are bandied about as solutions, when such ideas have long been trashed elsewhere.

Leo F. Saldanha

Coordinator 

Environment Support Group

leo@esgindia.org

www.esgindia.org

My name is Khan too

Shah Rukh Khan has a good sense of humour, else he would have been a nervous wreck. When you are arriving to give a speech and receive an important fellowship, a sigficant honour, and immigration officials detain Khan but let off fellow travellers (why? Because of their Hindu names), blood boils. His blood must have. But then you cannot shout at Immigration officials can you? That would be seen as an attack on the United States of America. It's like there is a dangerous alien species (Muslim, Arab or brown) out there in the rest of the world sniping at America.

This whole business of profiling is sickening. I travelled to the US recently and to my greatest displeasure on an american airline. There are two things I do to minimise the inconveniences that I am involuntarily imposed when I travel west. One, I do not transit through London, not since the time they imposed the racial and discriminatory practice of requiring a transit visa for South Asians, Chinese and some African nationals merely to pass through their airports. One is exempted only if the final destination is Canada or USA (they trust them, and thus by implication none else, not even fellow European governments). Not sure what they fear, that dark skinned nationals will dart out of high security Heathrow? And what into? Jobless UK?

Second, I never choose any american airline. Khan may have the money power to arrive in a private jet, I don't. I can barely afford 'cattle class' (thanks Tharoor), so I try and avoid further involuntary indignities. Since the hyper-paranoia influenced Patriot Act was passed, every american airline has been required by US law to deploy sufficient staff to question fully legal passengers arriving into the US on the purpose of their travel, etc., and have the power to refuse them permission to travel. Mind you these are not Immigration officials who probably have the right to examine your credentials. These are airline staff, mostly young kids, just out of college, who make the decision as you board he plane in your country. And they have enormous power to decide your future. Some of their questions are quite probing. Who are you seeing? How do you know her? I have been asked such, even when that 'her' could well be an old Professor.

At the gates of the US empire, be prepared for the real stuff. When I arrived in Logan Airport of Boston a week after the WTC attacks, I was pulled aside, my passport put into a red jacket, I was marched off the immigration line publicly, and made to stand in front of burly uniformed officials like in a Criminal Court room. And as I waited tired from 24 hours of flying, the officer was chewing on a chicken nugget. I must have been there close to an hour before I was summoned and some questions thrown at me. Finally satisfied with my answers, the officer allowed me to march off to collect my bags.

Since then, every time I go to the US, I am selected out. It happened on the recent visit as well. Out of about 350 passengers boarding the plane, it was apparently mathematically random that two Indians visible in the line were selected out for the thorough deal: bomb scan and all. I have had to go through this so many times now, that I have grown so comfortable and begun to research into this randomness and how so specifically the system is homing in on me. Random? Or Racial? Disturbing thoughts these.

But this is not the treatment only if you are arriving from abroad. Such indignifying experiences are part of the feature every time you fly within the US as well. Once I was to fly from Washington DC to New York for an important meeting, and return later in the day. When I arrived at Reagan National Airport, uncomfortably close to the Pentagon, I expected to suffer the indignifying treatment. So I arrived early. As I passed through security check, I was selected out for the full treatment. This takes a while. Finally when I got through and went to the boarding gate, the plane had taken off. Not making it to the flight was not my mistake, so I was reassigned the next flight.

To get the new boarding pass I had to go out of the security area and had to run as the next flight was leaving in half hour. I managed this gasping for breath, got in line and much against my wishes was selected out for the thorough. Consequence, second flight missed. Back to the desk of the airline, who are now shocked to see me again. They quickly issue me a boarding pass for the next flight leaving in half hour. I run to security, praying mathematically that I am actually a subject of randomness. Not at all. I am absolutely the target of this attack on my dignity. On finding me again in line, the official who had scanned me earlier is aghast. I explain. Out of sheer humaneness he promotes me for the thorough scan so I can make it to this flight at least. I just manage to.

I am not sure if this kind of a 'random' system helps build security. Surely there must be better mathematicians in USA than the one's who have built the current systems used by US security agencies. I do know though that such profiling is absolutely inhuman. If India were to institute such measures, would this be tolerated? Think of it, India's Defense Minister George Fernandes, former President Kalam, and several others dignitaries have suffered this indignity at the hands of US Immigration – in their case more than to their mere person, it is the office that they represent that is insulted as well.

Well Shah Rukh may have tried to lighten up everyone's spirits when he quipped "I was detained at the airport as always for an hour and a half, which was nice. Whenever I start feeling too arrogant about myself, I always take a trip to America. The immigration guys kick the star our of stardom." The as always part is rather disconcerting.

Grow up America. Go watch “My name is Khan”!