A hasty recarpeting that endangers road safety

Unscientific road re-relaying methods are becoming a big cause of worry for most Bengalureans. Asphalting roads without removing the existing layer has increased road levels across the city, pushing houses and shops down below.

The drawbacks are there for all to see. For instance, the residents of Halasuru believe that all their problems linked to waterlogging and flooding are because of the low elevation of houses compared to the roads.

R Harish Kumar owns a house in Halasuru, an area through which a huge open sewer passes. Drawing attention to the area's problems, he says the high elevation of roads determines which direction the water flows in.

Inconvenience

Here's his complaint: “Those who build roads should understand this. This is very inconvenient for houses that are at a low elevation. Water just flows in. It gets even worse when the water gets mixed with the waste water from the broken sewage system.”

For Yedu Rajeev, a biker, the issue is one of ease of transportation. “I am a native of Kerala. I come to Bengaluru very often on my bike. While the same problem exists where I come from, I am not bothered much there as I am familiar with those routes.”

He feels the road infrastructure in Bengaluru leaves much to be desired. He recalls how he once slipped on a road near Thippasandra because the road was too high.

“For a long stretch on that particular road, I could not get on from the muddy pavement to the asphalted road which was at a high level,” he says.

Fortunately, Rajeev escaped without much trouble. “I was travelling during day time. Imagine what could happen to someone who is travelling at night in heavy traffic.”

DH also spoke to author and philosopher Kartikeya Jain, who is currently working on an article about the safety of people on roads.

Hasty recarpeting

He says, “This hasty recarpeting of roads poses a civic safety issue more than anything else – as manhole covers are left several inches below the street level. This can be dangerous for pedestrians as well as cyclists and motorcyclists plying on these roads.”

Jain puts the problem in a nutshell: “If one keeps adding layer upon layer of tar on the streets without responsibly taking off the existing, older layers, we would have unnecessarily high , inaccessible roads. Structures such as shops, houses and underground drains along the roads would have to keep getting readjusted.”

Road safety hazard

The authorities, he points out, have also started the unscientific practice of building manholes at a greater height in anticipation of future layers of asphalt on the roads.

“This practice is a hazard to road safety. The perpetrators of such poor designs should definitely be exposed,” says Jain. Mocking the design, he terms it as something akin to “not just brushing it under the carpet, as the saying goes, but rather plonking down a whole new carpet on your old tattered rug, which should actually be disposed of first.”