Subir Roy: Roads to nowhere

OFF BEAT/ Bangalore cuts trees to build a flyover

A hundred or more trees will be cut to make way for a flyover in the heart of Bangalore. The destruction has already begun.

At the end of the day, stretches of Seshadri Road, which are among the most beautiful because of the trees that line them, will become like any other road in the country; not just unrecognisable but also cursed by the addition of hundreds of tonnes of concrete that will trap heat, retain it and do its bit to raise the temperature of Bangalore.

So the city will be taking one more step to undermine its weather, the second most important reason (the first is the talent pool) why companies come to set up shop in it.

One environmentalist, in a news report on this act of folly, states quite undogmatically that a balance has to be struck between the pluses and minuses in such matters.

So if the good resulting from the flyover far outweighs the harm then, of course, the trees should give way to the flyover. Another environmentalist is not no evenhanded and flatly states that the city is destroying its heritage.

First, the cost benefit analysis. Flyovers in a sprawling city like Delhi have the space to do themselves justice, much like the US where flyovers by whatever name were born and where they are now increasingly seen as disasters when built in inner city areas.

But the older parts of Bangalore enjoy no such luxury of wide open spaces. Its roads are, to begin with, so narrow that where a proper flyover may do some good, the city has to make do with half a flyover. This is what has happened at with the Richmond Circle flyover. It is one way, there not being enough space to have a dual carriageway.

The result is that while those coming towards the city centre benefit somewhat from the flyover, those going in the opposite direction are worse off than what they were before the flyover come.

And the Ananda Rao Circle flyover "" which is the subject of the present controversy "" will be similar, four lane and one way!

It is now widely acknowledged that a good number of inner city flyovers in Bangalore do more harm than good. But the urge to spend public money on these remains unabated.

They remind me of the large effigies of Ravana and his tribe that are burnt along with loads of fireworks every year all over north India around Dussehra.

That money, although burnt, is, in a sense, well spent because it symbolises the destruction of evil. In this case the monster remains, mocking both sense and sensitivity in a city that should know better.

That is not all. Cutting down trees to make way for a flyover is well intentioned, at least. But in this case some of the trees, like those in the compound of the nearby old central jail, are being cut down "" wait for this "" to create space for the contractors for the job to park their machinery and create a sprawling mess for years.

In an age of innovation, in a city that is the home of technology, why pre-constructed structures and pre-mixed concrete cannot be brought to the work site from elsewhere, is not clear.

Laying down such rules would have increased the project cost a little, but I doubt if anyone would have faulted the government for that.

It is tragic that in this regard, Bangalore is following the Kolkata way. When the innards of that city's main thoroughfare were dug up for decades to lay the metro rail, one of the biggest eyesore was what the railways did to the maidan, the lung of the city right at its centre. They created a massive godown and dumping ground for their goods and waste that long outlived the actual digging.

This is not the end of the Bangalore story. The flyover in question was originally supposed to follow a somewhat different alignment.

But that would have gobbled up a part of the Bangalore Turf Club. Reportedly, the worthies who run the latter pulled strings and threw their weight around to make sure that no such sacrilege took place within their club. Instead, it is the trees on Seshadri Road and nearby that will be slaughtered.

It is often asked what makes Bangalore different. One of the reasons is its parks. There are an enormous number of them that are exquisitely maintained "" a tribute to the overall aesthetic and civic sense of the residents.

What is most important is that many of these parks have been rejuvenated in the past few years. This is almost a miracle in a country where most things in the public space are in a state of perpetual decline.

It is mystifying how such sensible people decided to give themselves flyovers that do precious little good and merely shift traffic jams to both their ends.

And in return for the doubtful or meagre and temporary gains (flyovers initially ease some traffic congestion but tend to attract more traffic so as to nullify the initial gains), they end up doing a great deal of harm.

One of the lesser reasons why useless flyovers get built is because they often represent a nexus between politicians who need to make money by sanctioning public works, builders who are the enablers who live by thoughtless public spending, and PWD-minded government officials who think that the only way to solve a public problem is to throw bricks and mortar at it.

But by far the more important reason is that the general citizenry is either thoughtless or misguided on the uses and abuses of flyovers.

Not only is a certain amount of prestige attached to flyovers in India today, there is no understanding of the worth to society of something like a rain tree that can take over 50 years to replace.

Trees cannot be saved by environmentalists. They need a more powerful patron, like the people at large.