Yet, this is what the Congress' last government in a major Indian state has just cleared, in dubious haste, say local media, in Bengaluru: A 6.7-km long elevated road that will rip out the city's heart, all to speed a few thousand cars towards the airport for a limited time. The operative word is "towards" because this Rs 1,791-crore road to be built within two years atop what the government calls India's longest "steel bridge" will only ease a few jams and link up with a clogged intersection that marks the start of the highway to the airport.

This is not an unusual situation for urban India, defined by patchwork solutions and temporary reprieves. It is definitely not an unusual situation for Bengaluru, which is littered with badly-designed flyovers and underpasses that swept away trees and are now obstacles to traffic. What is unusual is the haste around this project (more on that later), and the permanent damage it will cause to an area that defines the city.

In no particular order, here is some of what the proposed bridge will damage or displace: Balabrooie (christened thus by Sir Mark Cubbon, a British-era city commissioner, after similar homes in his native Isle of Man in the Irish Sea) – a 150-year-old state guesthouse, which once hosted Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi, home to many chief ministers and trees a century old; the Indira Gandhi musical fountain, among India's largest and most advanced; five holes of a 139-year-old golf course, a sprawling green lung in the heart of the city; the main planetarium; and more than 800 of Bengaluru's oldest trees.

The loss of trees will be particularly damaging. Bengaluru has lost more than 50,000 trees since 2010, and there is now 0.1 tree for each resident, about a tenth of what it should be to absorb the carbon dioxide from the city's growing tide of vehicles – 1,600 are registered every day – I wrote recently in this column. ... So, chopping trees is always a bad idea, especially in a burgeoning city like Bengaluru. The government insists it will plant 20 trees for each tree felled, but it emerges that these trees will be seedlings planted on the city's outskirts, leaving the city centre – which has already lost hundreds of trees to road widening and the Bengaluru metro – a hot house. Chopping trees and destroying the places that give the city its identity all for a smoother commute over 6.7 km for a few months before traffic again floods the elevated road is a really bad idea.