What Bengaluru needs now is a plan that looks 50 years ahead, say Prakash Belawadi and Naresh Narasimhan, in their joint rejoinder

R K Misra's defence of the elevated corridors project, 'Elevated corridors will facilitate public transport' (Citizen Matters, 19 November 2016) is untenable because it is not supported by data or current expert opinion on sustainable urban mobility from anywhere in the world. Frankly, it seems out of date.

The project in question is the network of five elevated corridors, announced by the Chief Minister in his speech for Budget 2016-2017. It was Centre for Smart Cities, a non governmental organisation (NGO) founded by R K Misra, which proposed the elevated corridor network as an improved mobility plan for Bengaluru, in 2014. The NGO had also submitted a pre-feasibility report (PFR) - all quite top secret, for a while.

Objection 1 - Conflict of interest

This is professionally problematic, without due diligence of any kind. Here, for all practical purposes, Misra proposed it, approved and disposed of it, favourably.

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Objection 2 - No involvement of mobility experts

KRDCL is a road engineering body. It has no mobility expert of its own. Did it consult one? Was there an expert panel to vet this Rs 18,000 crore proposal? Who, within it, had the capacity to critically examine the project?

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Objection 3 - Decreasing lane width on surface

Every other detail in Misra's interview is engineering - placement of the elevated road, design of pillars and lane width. Citizen Matters poses the pertinent question: "What is the guiding principle of the project plan?" Misra's answer is revealing. He says: "The elevated corridor project is planned based on two traffic directions of the city - North-South and East-West, with interconnecting and loop elevated corridors.

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Objection 4 - Noncompliance with National Urban Transport Policy-2014

Misra should not be looking to increase traffic carrying capacity but rather seek to decrease traffic carrying units. Misra's thinking is seriously flawed. Is he looking to solve congestion, or improve mobility?

Public opinion needs to be taken before, not after the DPR

Even his idea of accommodating public opinion in making projects is wrong. He says: "Public consultation should be done after the DPR is ready, so that the dialogue is meaningful and the suggestions are specific." Instead of mocking citizens who formed the human chain against the steel flyover, Misra better heed NUTP 2014's advice on public opinion: "Public participation in planning increases the likelihood that actions taken or services provided by public agencies reflect the needs of the people and are accepted / adopted by people easily."

So, wide consultation with expert and public participation should be undertaken BEFORE such a plan is conceived of, at the planning stage itself. But this is like saying, "I'm going to beat you, what stick do you prefer?"

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Out of sync with global imagination

It's customary for experts like Misra to assume that some of us are just "activists," good only for "forming human chains," as he tweeted with an emoticon, thank you. So, invoking our qualifications (Prakash Belawadi, BE. Mech, UVCE, 1983; and Naresh Narasimhan, B.Arch, MIT Manipal, 1985), we wish to demonstrate to Misra how out of joint with global imagination on urban mobility his plan is.

Firstly, if 'X' is available road space, and 'Y' is number of units (people and vehicles using it), the solution is not to perennially increase 'X' - horizontally or vertically. At a critical point, the law of diminishing returns begins to operate. In Bengaluru, we have crossed that inflexion point some time ago. So, It's necessary to look at reducing 'Y'.

Not one mobility expert of repute, from any city in the world, will support Misra's idea that increasing road space with flyovers is a good solution. We challenge him to find one such expert. Flyovers are ugly and unjust to pedestrians, mass transport users and bicycle riders. Ultimately, they are rendered useless, because the ever-increasing number of new vehicles on the road will choke them with serious congestion as the flyovers descend on their ramps to 'ground reality'. It seems everybody but Misra, knows this.