1. Will you surrender your home and property for road widening ? Bangalore's vehicle population is doubling every 5 years. BBMP's current strategy is to increase road space to keep pace with vehicle population. This means road space needs to be doubled every 5 years. Thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed across Bangalore over the past 5 years, for road widening.
2. Traffic and Sadashivanagar According to the current 'strategy' of BBMP, roads must be widened to enable vehicles to move fast, irrespective of the human cost in terms of destruction of homes, businesses, greenery and heritage. Vehicles now have to go around Sadashivanagar – a long route. The shorter way is through the locality. A lot of vehicles already follow this route. Sadashivanagar is an island in the middle of roads with high traffic.
3. The Ostrich attitude : Don't confront the problem, and maybe it'll one day go away on its own. Keep widening roads endlessly 2010 2015 2005 2020 ?
4. The current strategy Dog chasing its own tail Road space can never keep pace with vehicle population.
5. Roads that may be widened In a year, the BBMP may want to widen the roads marked in red in the picture - 10 th Cross, 13 th Cross, 8 th Main, 10 th Main, 9 th Cross, 5 th Cross. Since, according to BBMP, vehicles should go through the shortest possible route, roads through Sadashivanagar must be widened.
6. Roads that may be widened Another serious possibility – 6 laning of these roads.
7. If 8 th Main is made 4-lane. You get a 1 month notice to vacate your home. Even if you do not live ON any of the roads that may be widened, your life is going to be hell, with greenery gone, pollution and noise 2 roads away from you. What does it look like ?
8. A double-edged sword Widening on someone else's street destroys their home, business and neighbourhood, enables your vehicle to travel faster. Widening on your street destroys your home, enables someone else to drive faster. If today you ask for widening of Sankey Road, someone else is waiting to ask for widening your road. Fact : people in RMV II Stage are already asking for our roads to be widened. Road widening is a destructive, temporary solution to the traffic problem, not done in any sensible cities. The permanent solutions are better traffic management and sustainable transport. If you support the widening elsewhere now or keep quiet, the day is not far off (within 1 or 2 years ?) when YOUR home may be the one destroyed. So act now, before it is too late.
9. The only solution Abandon road widening as a solution to our traffic issues.