The ongoing protests against the proposed felling/ translocation of trees near Dighalipukhuri area has very well demonstrated the awareness amongst the citizens on the importance of protecting and preserving the environment, along with the economic development. Public testimonials reveal a strong sentiment against harming the natural environment in the name of infrastructure development for economic progress.
ALSO READ: Opinion | The Dighalipukhuri Awakening: A Call for Environmental Justice
The protests have also sparked an interesting discussion- that projects such as the Dighalipukhuri-Noonmati flyover are urban necessities in the contemporary era and such projects need to harmonise with the natural environment. While many people argue that flyovers are necessary to alleviate traffic congestion, contemporary practices in transportation planning suggest that flyovers do not really contribute to the decongestion of the city. The absence of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and the lack of public consultations further underscore the gaps in the technical and community inputs required for major infrastructure projects.
Technically speaking, flyovers, or simply stating, supplying more road space, is a solution of the past. Modern urban transportation practitioners consider reducing the demand for reliance on private vehicles, rather than providing more road space to drive them. The main reason is because flyovers do not reduce the number of vehicles from the roads, rather just transfer the congestion from one place to another, eventually building up the congestion at the end of the flyover.
An interesting term also pops up in the discussion of adding road spaces- ‘induced demand’. As new road space is provided, more people are encouraged to drive there, as it is assumed to be less congested. This ultimately results in more and more people choosing to drive on the new road space, ultimately generating a new demand that did not exist earlier, thereby choking up this new road space as well. The Ganeshguri flyover, Six Mile flyover, Ulubari Flyover are great examples to witness this- the new road space generated due to the construction of the new flyover ultimately clogged over time, prompting the authorities to construct even more road spaces to relieve the congestion.
However, now as new road space gets filled up again, it gets increasingly more difficult to build yet more road space- due to the constraints of space and very importantly, the constraints of funds.
Coming to funds, infrastructure projects are quite capital intensive. The proposed Dighalipukhuri-Noonmati flyover itself has an estimated budget of Rs 852.68 crore. One could now argue that this amount can very well be spent to do something more meaningful, for example, procuring city buses to expand and improve public transport, investing in Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS) for efficient traffic management and easing the burden on the traffic police, investing in Non-Motorised Transportation (NMT), that offer sustainable alternatives to commuting and many more. Another point to be noted here is that such massive infrastructure projects would probably last for decades, raising concerns about their ability to meet the future transportation needs of the city.
A city thrives because people have convenient access to goods and services, which generally are located at the ground level. Roads get congested because people stop at shops, malls, restaurants, hospitals, schools etc., all of these services that lie below the flyover. These massive concrete structures completely fail to cater to those who need to stop below and are beneficial to select few who need to bypass the entire hub of economic activities at the ground level.
Addition of more road space is simply something that cannot be done indefinitely and in order to decongest a city, it is essential to invest in reliable public transportation complemented by robust first and last mile connectivity. However, if investments are to be made in building more road space, authorities need to consider achieving a higher road density that would encompass a dense mesh of interconnected roads that would provide multiple routes between destinations. Such measures would ultimately help in decongesting the city in the long run while improving accessibility to various goods and services throughout the day.
(The writer is an architect and transportation planner and is a voluntary member of Purvca Foundation, Guwahati)