Flying over consultations

Widespread public protests had forced the government to withdraw the controversial Rs 1,800-crore Basaveshwara Circle steel flyover project. Months later, a similar but much smaller project has sparked a protest by the local residents, echoing a recurring lacuna: Lack of public consultation, a process that ought to have preceded every infrastructure proposed in the people’s name.

Local residents and traders in the vicinity of the proposed flyover at Sivananda Circle are not convinced that the structure will decongest the place. They question the problem itself. Barring 30 minutes during the morning and evening peak, the traffic is perfectly manageable, they contend. Spending Rs 50 crore on a 330-metre steel flyover, they say, is simply not justified.

Srinivas Alavilli from Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB) insists that the protest is not an irrational anti-development stance. It is about being kept in the dark about a project that directly affects the residents. Nothing is in public domain. “Only when they started soil testing did we know that something is on. Even now, the information trickling in is conflicting,” he points out.

A public consultation meet would have cleared the air. “There are very active, buzzing Residents Welfare Associations in the area. The government should have invited them and presented its case. If there are traffic studies to justify such a structure, all stakeholders should have been shown. Their suggestions should have been sought,” says Alavilli.

Larger issue

But a larger issue has come to the fore with the protest: That, residents, increasingly aware of projects that incentivise only motorised transport, will not stay silent anymore. Infrastructure projects that are drawn up unilaterally, without much basis, will not go unopposed. Steamrolling public opposition will just not do.
Urban mobility experts see the project as another instance of the government’s low priority for pressing issues such as last-mile connectivity gaps, pedestrianisation on roads beyond the TenderSURE network and consensus building.

Most Metro stations, for instance, suffer from poor connectivity with remote areas in their vicinity. The skeletal commuter rail system is not properly linked to bus stands and the Metro. Most roads in the city score poorly on walkability.

Big flaws

If residents had been consulted, they would have drawn attention to one big flaw in the proposed flyover plan: Taking off as a four-lane elevated stretch near Desai Nursing Home at Sivananda Circle, the flyover would land just before the railway bridge, where the road narrows down to just two lanes. This is a sure-shot recipe for traffic chaos, say the residents, traffic police and experts. The whole point of the flyover would then be defeated.

Currently, the signalled junction at Sivananda Circle, where vehicles halt for a minute or two, prevents congestion at the railway underbridge. However, as citizen activist Suraj Chhabria points out, vehicles on the flyover will descend at high speed just before the bridge, triggering severe congestion.  

But why are such projects foisted on people in the first place? Financial spin-offs for vested interests within and outside the government from such big ticket projects are often talked about, although documentary evidence rarely shows up.

Disturbing trend

Concerned citizens, civic activists and seasoned road engineers find the trend disturbing, particularly when government agencies such as the Department of Urban Land Transport (DULT) have emerged to push for sustainable, multi-modal transport solutions for Bengaluru. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) too is involved in shaping a pedestrian-friendly approach to road-building through the TenderSURE project. The new flyover project goes entirely against this emerging trend. Inter-agency coordination is clearly missing.
Unnerved by the government’s move to go ahead with the project, those campaigning against the flyover have now approached the court. The matter is likely to come up for discussion in the BBMP Council on Monday. Land acquisition and other processes involved are bound to delay the project. With the campaing gaining momentum, it is now clear that the project may not be formally launched in a hurry.

The National Urban Transport Policy, formulated in 2014 had clearly indicated that the priority should be in moving people, not moving vehicles. The policy’s stated objective was this: “Bringing about a more equitable allocation of road space with people, rather than vehicles, as its main focus.” Flyovers of dubious utility do not fit this agenda.