[Urbanstudy] VERY IMPORTANT: Road widening schemes in Bangalore

Mon Dec 10 10:59:35 IST 2007

Curt,

Everything you say is absolutely critical to the way things are in
Bangalore.  Unfortunately there has been little or no response from
architecture departments, planning schools, sociology departments or related
academic institutions in Blore on this issue.  By and large, civil society
organisations, residents associations, social action groups, etc. consider
these issues as non-priority issues - some even agree road widening is
required probably unaware of the implications.  In that sense it is
unfortunately true that the "Hasiru Usiru" network is probably the only
active forum voicing serious concerns on this issue.

Efforts by this forum secured us access to the highest decision making body
last week - the interdepartmental Blore Urban Traffic Planning Cmt.. (or
something like that).  Every senior bureaucrat of every liked department
(Chief Sec., Dev Commissioner, Home Secretary, Finanace Secretary, Police
Chief, Traffic Commissioner, BDA, BMRDA, BBMP, BMTC chiefs and all the
utilities, etc.) were represented in this meeting.  One would expect such a
high powered committee to carefully scrutinise issues and develop a
conversation that would progressively engage in working our ways out of the
current mess.  But we all had to come out utterly disappointed when we heard
them share their visions, their approaches and their methods for resolving
the traffic crisis. For besides useless rhetoric, and the advancement of
one's departmental position (ironic loyalty considering that bureaucrats
generally aren't rooted too long in any one dept.), they had nothing of
substance to present to the wide public about how they were intending to
alleviate the circumstance.  Often one hears bureacrats complain of
political interference, but now there is none.... so their solutions could
have been reasonable, unfettered and wholistic.  It was none of this and
this is proof that most of our urban solutions aren't cooked up by political
interests but by bureaucratic visions (or whatever that is).

I am deeply troubled by this situation and really feel that if there is no
collective action now, Bangalore will be transformed, yes, but clearly
against all progressive understandings of urbanisms.

Leo

On 10/12/2007, Curt Gambetta <cugambetta at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Leo:
>
> I looked at some of the files... what you are speaking about is indeed a
> significant road widening. I am just curious, besides Hasiru Usiru, has
> anyone else taken note of this? Do you have any sense, besides the visual
> and environmental impact on these roads, what the economic effect will be?
> It seems like many of the activities flanking these roads are
> institutional... which could I imagine make it difficult to mobilize any
> concern for the impact of the projects.
>
> Unsurprisingly, it seems the city is giving into the way of the
> automobile. (I can only imagine the chaos when the road construction and
> Metro construction are underway... if they think the center of the city is
> choked with traffi c now!) It boggles the mind to see them doing this,
> considering that American cities large and small, many of whom instituted
> the same car driven focus in earlier decades, are now realizing that the
> street is much more than a means to get from here to there, and are
> investing significant amounts of money in remedies to these sorts of
> projects in order to restore community and economic vitality to the life of
> the street.
>
> Curt
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: leo saldanha <leofsaldanha at gmail.com>
> To: urbanstudygroup at sarai.net
> Cc: NURM list <jnnurm at yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, December 7, 2007 10:56:49 PM
> Subject: [Urbanstudy] VERY IMPORTANT: Road widening schemes in Bangalore
>
>
> Dear  All,
>
> Two days ago the Chief Engineer (Road Widening) of the Blore Mahanagara
> Palike (and yes it is the Bruhat body) called constituents of Hasiru
> Usiru for a meeting on the request of the BBMP Tree Officer.
>
> The agenda was to review the proposed (but actually ongoing) road
> widening schemes in Blore.  Currently there are 10 roads proposed for
> widening and re-engineering, and there are at least 30 more that will be
>
> worked on similarly.
>
> Put together, these roads form the core streets of Blore.  Almost all
> are well canopied and their streetscapes are what anyone familiar with
> Bangalore would characterise as the quintessential aspects of the city.
>
>
> With these proposals to widen roads the face of Bangalore will literally
> be transformed.  From a cursory review of their plans it was clear that
> there is not much attention paid to details such as pedestrian zones,
>
> regulated
>  traffic, care for the elderly and the infirm, the cause of
> children, and the importance of travel safety.  The focus is almost
> entirely based on de-congesting Bangalore's messy traffic, and ensuring
>
> the core zones of Electronics city and the new Airport are accessible.
>
> In the meeting the Chief Engineer did confirm that the one way streets
> have failed, and thereby the move is now to allow for bidirectional
>
> traffic flows.  The concentration is on reenginnering traffic
> intersections to allow for this and hopefully limit congestion points.
>
> Dr. Subbarayan Prasanna, Urban and Regional Planner and formerly Dean at
>
> IIM-B, Muralidhar Rao, Vinay Baindur and I participated in the
> proceedings.  Our collective endeavour was to rationalise their
> proposals and ensure that such widening schemes were sensitive to all
> road users needs and also to the quiet sentinels of Blore's heritage -
>
> its
>  charming trees.   We are not confident that the effort of BBMP will
> take care of all these concerns.
>
> However, because of our insistence, and prodding from Tree Officer
> Shekar and his deputy Suresh, the Engineering Division somewhat
>
> reluctantly agreed to part with the designs.  They were delivered to me
> in autocad files late yesterday.  I have since then uploaded them to the
> files section of hasiruusiru at yahoogroups.com
> .  Those who are not members
> of this list, if you are interested in accessing these files, must join
> this list.  Alternatively you could come to ESG and collect the files on
> a pendrive (or CD). They are too large to email (zipped version is
> 16.5
> MB).  I have been unsuccessful in uploading the files to yousendit.com.
> In case someone wants to take the initiative, the files can be migrated
> to an online port which is open to all.
>
>
> These files will have to be opened in autocad.  In case you do not have
> the software you could download the free version of edrawings and view
> these files.
>
> We have a very big task cut out for us.  These drawings are an
>
> impression of what Bangalore will look like in just a few months. And
> the effort of felling trees is likely to start very soon. Believe me,
> the nos are in the hundreds.  Seen from another perspective, say from
>
> space, you could delete most of the canopied streets in core Bangalore
> and that is what the city would look like in only a few weeks.
>
> The Tree Officer is witholding permission to fell these trees  even as
>
> some are already being 'translocated' - an action that is illegal per
> the Tree Act - on some
>  streets.  We have to do everything possible to
> ensure there is a rational process to minimise the damage of this
>
> exercise. It is important that we come together to collectively address
> our concerns, and I suggest we do this by meeting.
>
> Since the projection of the drawings will give us a good idea of what is
> the likely result of this exercise, I suggest we meet at ESG on Tuesday
>
> evening between 5.30 -6.30 p.m.  We will have a projector and also,
> hopefully, the printouts.
>
> We have to come together despite such short notice and urgently collate
> our concerns and re-present them to BBMP so we do not have to ruminate
>
> later on what could have been possible.
>
> Meantime, please do download the drawings and start the process of
> formulating our responses.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Leo Saldanha
> Environment Support Group
>
>
>
> Leo Saldanha
> Environment Support Group
> 105, East End B Main Road,
> Jayanagar 9th Block East,
> Bangalore 560069. INDIA
> Telefax: 91-80-26341977/26531339/26534364
> Email: leo at esgindia.org or esg at esgindia.org
> Web: www.esgindia.org
>
>
>
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-- 
Leo Saldanha
Environment Support Group
105, East End B Main Road,
Jayanagar 9th Block East,
Bangalore 560069. INDIA
Telefax: 91-80-26341977/26531339/26534364
Email: leo at esgindia.org or esg at esgindia.org
Web: www.esgindia.org
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