Roads were in the news again. BBMP has put out an estimate of 6,000 potholes as per their one square metre, depth unknown definition. The Urban Development Minister has said citizens can tweet a pothole to get it fixed. One hopes this initiative works but as we have seen in the past, these are band aid fixes and sans working on fixing the underlying problem, the pot holes will reappear post the rains. This ad hoc reaction to visible problems makes one yearn for a day when the city has clear guiding principles about their approach to fixing the city roads.
We need to be clear about the hierarchy of road users we are serving. It starts with the very vulnerable population that walks followed by the cyclist, the very desirable public bus transport and finally the motorised vehicles. Unfortunately, we are obsessed with serving the motor vehicles, particularly the cars. Unless we invert the user pyramid with pedestrians at the heart of the road planning and improvement schemes we are doomed to fail. Then there is the choice between cheap, but repetitive short-term fixes with associated costs and discomfort which is our traditional model or thinking life cycle costs. The latter implies willing to spend more upfront for robust footpaths and roads and reducing the need for repetitive repair and associated costs.
So, what does the above guiding principles mean for the myriad road projects in our city budget. There are the Tender SURE roads, the white topping projects, the elusive cycling tracks under the Public Bike Sharing project, the pedestrian improvement schemes, drain remodeling that get announced and of course the perennial pothole repair. Of these, the Tender SURE roads follow the user hierarchy and life cycle cost principles but do need higher investment which is not available for all roads.
For the remaining road projects, we need to ensure that wider footpaths and uniform vehicle lanes need to be the norm. This is not happening under the expensive white topping roads which is positioned as pothole free roads. And for the 98% asphalted roads, potholes will recur unless road geometry proper and silt free drains exist. We can have different types of road improvement initiatives, but they need to embrace core principles of pedestrians first and long-term outlook. Done right, citizens will have no cause for tweeting road complaints.
@ravichandar
Author is an urban expert,who calls himself the Patron Saint of Lost Causes