Elevated corridors proposed in budget

RWAs and other citizen groups are already charting out a plan to oppose the project

July 05, 2018 09:15 pm | Updated 09:15 pm IST

 Citizens expressing their view on the steel flyover in October 2016. The protests convinced the previous Congress government to drop the project. Now, citizens are planning to launch a campaign on the lines of the successful #SteelFlyoverBeda to oppose the latest proposal by the Congress-JDS government.

Citizens expressing their view on the steel flyover in October 2016. The protests convinced the previous Congress government to drop the project. Now, citizens are planning to launch a campaign on the lines of the successful #SteelFlyoverBeda to oppose the latest proposal by the Congress-JDS government.

The new Congress-JDS coalition government on Thursday unveiled a mega project that will see a network of six interconnected elevated corridors spanning the length and breadth of Bengaluru. With an estimated cost of ₹15,825 crore, the project will be implemented over a period of four years by the Karnataka Road Development Corporation Ltd (KRDCL). Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy has earmarked ₹1,000 crore for this fiscal in the 2018-19 budget.

The project, however, has already received a flood of criticism from activists and citizens groups who describe it as disastrous and have threatened to launch a campaign along the lines of the successful #SteelFlyoverBeda. The plan for five elevated corridors was first proposed in 2015 by Whitefield-based activist R.K. Mishra. It was later taken up by the BBMP. Even at the time, the proposal had met with a lot of opposition.

Dr. Ashish Verma, chairman, Transport Engineering Lab, IISc., said the plan would put the city on ventilator support. “Pod taxis and elevated corridors are not part of any transport study or plan for the city, and it is shocking at how such big projects are introduced without any rationale,” he said. “It is proven that as long as you provide infrastructure for private vehicles, it will fill up in no time. The city needs to take a more sustainable public mass transit route,” he added.

Within minutes of the announcement being made, residents welfare associations and citizens groups started charting out a plan to oppose the project. The previous Siddaramaiah-led Congress government had in February 2017 scrapped its plan to build a ₹2,000-crore steel flyover that was aimed at providing better connectivity to Kempegowda International Airport, following a public outcry, sustained protests and an order by the National Green Tribunal.

Srinivas Alavilli of Citizens for Bengaluru, which was at the forefront of the #SteelFlyoverBeda movement, failed to understand the rationale behind elevated corridors. “Our criticism of the steel flyover was also an opposition to all flyovers, widening of roads, every project that encourages private transport. We are again forced to come to the streets again, and we will do so to save the city,” he said.

In his budget, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy says: “This is a good contribution to Bengaluru's transportation system, as this scheme is formulated keeping in view the elevated corridor and Bengaluru Metro Scheme”.

R.K. Mishra said that Bengaluru suffers from a strange problem in that its network of arterial and sub-arterial roads is only 1,400 km long and has already been outpaced by traffic volume leading to severe congestion. “Many argue for increasing the number of BMTC buses, but what they don’t realise is there is not enough carriage capacity for the same. We need to first expand the carriage capacity of arterial and sub-arterial roads, and elevated corridors is the only way,” he said.

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