Come, join us- Human Chain @Lalbagh on Apr 17, 6pm opposing Illegal Metro Construction in Lalbagh

[vinay_ks]

Save Lalbagh, Save Nanda Road, Save Bangalore’s future

Joing the Protest against the illegal construction of Metro in Lalbagh

Friday, Apr 17, 6pm, R. V. Road (at Lalbagh West Gate)

Earlier this week (April 13-14), the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) demolished over 500 feet of Lalbagh's wall and cut down trees inside Lalbagh

Comments

[subhi]

"We urge the Government to scrap the totally unnecessary Rs. 3,000 crores investment in the High Speed Rail Link from M G Road to Bangalore airport, which will serve the needs of only 30,000 air travellers."

Are you serious?

Environment is important- you need to understand the impact on the environment by the metro. For eg. the no. of cars that it will reduce will result in exponentially higher reduction of greenhouse gases and pollution than the trees that are being cut.

[jace]

While I'm generally sceptical of anti-development protests, this one is nuanced. Vinay & co are not opposing the Metro itself, just the current design which takes it over ground, eating into already choked road space. The Metro will reduce vehicular traffic, but by also reducing road space, it will only make traffic density worse. I hope you agree that stop-and-go movement and idling vehicles at traffic junctions are particularly bad for the environment.

If the money earmarked for the airport-city linked is instead spent in taking the metro underground, it will raise none of the above concerns. Unfortunately, it is too late to be doing anything for this. There has already been enough construction and there are far too many anti-development protesters (who are rightfully being ignored) that the small number of pro-environment voices have trouble getting heard.

Today's protest will be nothing more than a token protest, but it deserves our support for no reason other than that someone has to speak up on behalf of the environment.

[subhi]

With the metro, there are a lot more concerns than just environment and money.
For eg., about 25-30 k people use the airport- that's as many people traveling 30 kms out and back. The inconvenience and eco-problems apart, it's loss of time and money for all the passengers. Also, consider the safety aspect- I just took a bus form the airport and I was dropped off at a random place at 1 in the night. With the metro, there would be no deviations.

"Today's protest will be nothing more than a token protest, but it deserves our support for no reason other than that someone has to speak up on behalf of the environment."
A protest just for the sake of voicing a complaint/opinion is a waste of energy. You would simply lose your credence for future protests. There has to be a manifesto or a truly viable alternative that takes into consideration ALL the aspects.

[jace]

In two parts:

1. The airport-city metro link is important and should be built. The argument is more over the claim that there is not enough money to send the metro underground. Funding isn't simply about money from a bank account. Karnataka has been taxing Bangalore's fuel consumption for well over a decade to fund the metro. That money has been channelled elsewhere in exchange for money from elsewhere to fund the metro today. Therefore, when the government claims that there isn't enough money to do it right, but there is enough money to spend on a high profile and relatively low usage project, it's easy to make the point that this allocation is inappropriate.

2. This is a token protest in the sense that it won't save Lalbagh. That battle is already lost, if not yet ceded. It is not a frivolous protest. A truly viable alternative has been proposed right from the beginning: take the metro underground.

[vinay_ks]

Dear Subhi

[subhi]

"Also, when you say the metro will remove a lot of cars off the road, im not too sure. Consider these facts "

Delhi metro did a lot of research on this-
http://www.delhimetrorail.com/corporates/ecofriendly.html

The overall impact is the same in Blore.
---
Also, at this stage of the metro construction there will be a huge economic\environmental impact for revamping the entire construction plan.

In my opinion, a more useful channeling of energies would be to get metro to allocate a portion of the budget to plant more trees and to maintain them.

[jace]

If Bangalore had Delhi's management, this would be a very different city. Unfortunately, we don't. Bangalore does not have an independent government like Delhi does. We're run by a government elected by the rest of Karnataka and which caters to them.

Central Bangalore today has a fairly smooth traffic flow pattern thanks to the well thought out system of one-ways. This is not true for the rest of the city. Outer areas are connected to the core through just ten arterial roads (the same ten served by BMTC's Big10 bus network). Some of these outer areas, like Jayanagar and JP Nagar, have a well-laid out grid pattern that nicely distributes most of the traffic. The rest are isolated localities attached to their arterial roads with no other access to the city centre. Connections between these localities are in the form of winding, irregular width roads formed more out of necessity than planning

[vinay_ks]

why go to delhi..Have a look at the EIA report of Bangalore metro - www.bmrcl.co.in . It says a total of 412 trees will be felled ALL over the city for the metro. and now they themselves say 323 trees will go on Nanda road alone and that 250 trees are already cut elsewhere. they already exceeded that they said.the EIA is a sham.

and i agree with jace when he says -
"An overhead Metro will effectively be a permanent choke on the road's traffic carrying ability. Even if it does take out some traffic, this city's growth rate will not ease up. Roads below the Metro line will choke up again, roads will have to be widened again, and because land acquisition is so painful, the government will take the easy path of just doing away with pedestrian sidewalks and public parks."

[jace]

I've uploaded pictures of yesterday's gathering: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jace/sets/72157616949941876/

[calvinscorner]

Thanks Jace, for posting pictures.

hi

[jace]

i support you. Lalbagh should not be distroyed at the cost of metro.Please let me know of any event related to it. my no. is 9986386623

Re: hi

[vinay_ks]

Dear Chetan,

Please check our website - www.hasiruusiru.org for more details about how you can join.

We also have a protest rally this saturday, at 8am on Nanda Theatre Road - 32nd cross junction.Please join us.

Thanks,
Vinay.