JOIN USWhy city steel flyover stir matters to India
Enrique Penalosa, Bogotá’s celebrated mayor, who got a second term last year, once said – “there are two ways to destroy a city. One is through nuclear bombing, and the other is with elevated roads.”
While he may have exaggerated his point, there is enough empirical evidence from around the world to suggest that flyovers or elevated roads don’t solve the mobility needs of a city. On the contrary, these projects have strong negative impacts like road traffic crashes and poor air quality, apart from decreasing the quality of life.
Last Sunday, thousands of people formed a human chain on the streets of Bengaluru in protest against the controversial steel flyover. This was probably the first public protest over a flyover project in India. Unfortunately, flyovers are still being considered by governments as a symbol of city development.
The motive behind the project, being constructed by the Ba-ngalore Development Authority, is to reduce travel time for vehicles plying to the airport by a me-re 10 minutes! It will lead to cutting of almost 800 trees and may also impact heritage buildings.
The rampant prescription of flyovers as a mobility solution in cities is not confined to Bengaluru, but there are numerous examples where cities have (unsuccessfully) tried to build their way out of congestion. Delhi has over 90 flyovers, one-fourth of which were built between 2010 and 2015. Similarly, Mumbai has over 100 flyovers, including India’s first double-decker flyover, most of which were built between 1995 and 2000. Chennai, till a couple of years ago, had 22 operational flyovers and around 30 bridges in the city, with another 36 flyovers in an advanced stage of planning.
Even with these, there has been a consistent decline in vehicular speed in all these cities. Academic research and practical experience have demonstrated that more road space and capacity usually leads to more cars on roads. This is in line with the demand-supply curve which will lead to creating a vicious cycle.
It also reduces public transit and non-motorised transport use due to compromised access for these modes of transport. Therefore, any benefit that might result by way of increased average speeds for motor vehicles is quickly neutralised over a few years.
Therefore, some progressive cities around the world are doing just the opposite – they are demolishing flyovers/elevated roads from the city. Cheonggyecheon Freeway in Seoul is one such example. In the 1950s, Cheonggyecheon river, bordered by a slum and used as a dumping ground, became an eyesore of polluted water.
The local authorities decided to build a four-lane elevated freeway on it. What followed four decades after the construction was contrary to what had been envisioned. It led to the deterioration of the Cheonggyecheon area with increased traffic, noise and air pollution.
Urban pride
Today, the highway is demolished, and the river has been rehabilitated. The resulting green space is a source of urban pride, and motor vehicle travel times have actually improved in the neighbourhood of the old highway. The supposedly “crazy idea” to tear down a vital traffic artery that carried 1.68 lakh cars per day is now inspiring many more cities.
San Francisco, Boston, Milwaukee, Trenton, Portland and Chattanooga in the United States, Vancouver and Toronto in Canada, and Melbourne and Auckland had also built elevated highways between 1950 and 1980 only to demolish later to make more space for pedestrians. It is estimated that over a hundred flyover or elevated projects have been demolished worldwide.
The Bangalore Mobility Indicator Report of 2011 suggested that 31% people in the city use private motorised modes of transport comprising 6% car users and 25% two-wheeler users. The study also estimates that 35% people in the city use non-motorised modes, mostly walking (27%) and the rest 34% use formal (27%) and intermediate modes of public transport.
It is clear that car users form a small fraction of road users, yet most of the city’s effort is foc-used around easing the perceiv-ed pain of this minority. So, what cities need is to first define the problem, look at alternative solutions and finally select the best solution for implementation.
In Bengaluru’s case, the alternative to the Rs 1,800 crore investment could be in the form of 10 km of Metro or 15 km of suburban rail or 100 km of high quality bus rapid transit system or even augmenting city’s public transport system by over 30% by adding 2000 high quality air conditioned buses.
The benefits of any of these projects would go to a larger cross section in the city, rather than only the 6% car users. Apart from improving mobility, these projects would positively contribute towards road safety and air pollution as the steel flyover will only deteriorate them in the medium and long-run.
The protest in Bengaluru has shown that even the common citizens of the city have understood that flyovers don’t work. The city agencies have to now come up with a sustainable alternative, setting the new urban agenda, which is currently being debated in Quito with over 36,000 delegates as part of Habitat III.
(The writer is Director-Integrated Transport, WRI India)