BENGALURU: Days after Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai announced that 11 more flyovers will come up to decongest traffic in Bengaluru, mobility experts and activists expressed serious concerns over the plan.
Expressing anger over the CM’s announcement, Preeti Sunderajan from ‘Citizens for Sankey’ said, “It is shocking to hear the CM talk about 11 flyovers being approved when there is a major issue surrounding the Sankey flyover project. We as citizens must be informed about what is going on around us and participate actively to get the government do what is best for us. We remember the time when ‘steelflyoverbeda’ was a success. Now, we will make ‘flyoveryaake’ a success too.”
Activist Brinda Adige said the civil society knows what is best for the city and has given suggestions to the government which have fallen on deaf dears. Echoing similar concerns, activist Prabha Dev from ‘Citizen For Bengaluru’ said, “Citizen groups have spent a lot of time and effort consulting experts on how redundant flyovers are as a solution to decongest traffic. The government should involve the public from all wards and zones from the planning stage itself.”
Appealing to Bengalureans to stop such projects, Shaheen Shasa from Bengaluru Bus Prayanikara Vedike opined that widespread opposition to road-widening projects from 2005 to 2011 or the steel flyover ‘Beda’ campaign in 2016 or the campaign against city-wide elevated corridors in 2018, people’s movements have been successful in pushing back such projects in the past. “People from across the city should come together and oppose the widespread destruction of the city in the name of road widening and flyovers,” stressed Shasa.
According to Prof Ashish Verma, a mobility expert from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, said the flyovers announced by the CM will not solve the traffic problems. “Take the latest example of the Shivananda Circle Flyover. The whole purpose of building the flyover is defeated as there is a bottleneck near the railway bridge, besides traffic on the flyover getting slowed down. The government should instead synchronise the traffic signals to get the desired results. The signal synchronisation is free of cost whereas building a flyover involves heavy expenditure,” said Verma.