[Urbanstudy] VERY IMPORTANT: Road widening schemes in Bangalore

Mon Dec 10 11:16:34 IST 2007

Happened to bump into a similar docs in BBMP (enclosed).
Can HasiruUsiru ask through RTI if these are shared/views taken into account
with/from citizen under 4(1)C and 4(1)D of RTI act.

Rgds
Harish

On Dec 10, 2007 10:59 AM, leo saldanha <leofsaldanha at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City
> >
> > To subscribe or browse the Urban Study Group archives, please visit
> > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
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> > Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City
> >
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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
> _______________________________________________
> Urbanstudygroup mailing list
> Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City
>
> To subscribe or browse the Urban Study Group archives, please visit
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup
>
>
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