[simplyself]

Evicting the people from shops and homes ( legal and encroacher s) to satiate the ever increasing demand for more wide roads as more people buy more vehicles is a common site today.

Can widening the roads by demolishing homes and shops be justified? How many people should lose their homes, shops and livelihoods to make way for others?

[supremeBaleno]

When I saw the thread-title, I thought the OP would be from Kerala, where currently the land-acquisition for widening the roads to 45ms (for other states it is 60m - exception done for land-starved Kerala) is a big issue currently.

My sister (living at Kollam) will lose half her land/home with the line passing literally through the centre of her home. And to add insult to injury, some years ago, they had to part with 2 cents of land for the widening drive then (for 30ms ???), which was not even utilised. She lives along NH47, so price/cent is huuuge. Obviously she is mad about the whole thing - loss of land, damage of a building that was built just 5-6 years ago etc.

The NH47 as it stands now (atleast from Chertala to Tvm) is just as wide as a decent Chennai city-road and calling it an NH is letting imagination fly loose - potholes all over the place, no median, just about 1 lane on each side etc.

The average width of this road currently is like 15ms at most places and in my opinion if the useless guys manning the Kerala highways would take some lessons from their efficient counterparts in TN, they can make a proper highway out of the 30ms currently available to them - atleast 2 lanes on each side, a proper median etc. But this is too much to hope for in God's own country, that is slowly going to the dogs.

[lohithrao]

Nature also has payed a huge price for the road widening purpose, 100s of treeshave been cut in Karnataka for the dev purpose, its apainful sight to see the huge trees being cut:(

[ph03n!x]

Elevated roads. There no space down here, so have to make it up by build higher up! How viable it is, I am not the one to say - just a thought

[aargee]

My thought always has been this - First & foremost thing is to educate people on road, no matter he's a literate or illiterate. Reason being that, even if we have roads like US, if people are still the same, we could all still see the traffic jams & once again we'll keep blaming the Govt for ineffeciency to infrastructure.

Having said that, the expansion is agreeable only on the basis of absolute necessity.

@Pho3n!ix - Its way too expensive; think about the pillars, & then the road instead of simply constructing the road. IMO, the Govt should've clearly planned these several decades back instead of doing nothing & reinventing wheels.

[ph03n!x]

Originally Posted by aargee

the Govt should've clearly planned these several decades back instead of doing nothing & reinventing wheels.

That's the problem with old cities like Madras, Calcutta, Old Hyderabad, etc - there was no planning in the days when the city became a habitat, Few areas in Madras like Anna Nagar are planned out with broad roads - but the leading roads are chocked, leading to pile up. And, like you said, those who use those roads are primitive and cause pile ups too!

[subscrive]

encroachers should lose "their" land irrespective of road widening.

for legal guys, the only thing to say is that you shud move out at right time so that you earn handsome money.

else there should be no vehicle limit in certain parts of city like london. but even this will not be accepted to the "hypocrites" who will shout saying that they want to own vehicle, park it on road, make things inconvenient to people, but still dont want to part with their land for development purpose. - this reasoning for people staying/owning properties in the heart of the city.

[ajmat]

I would do it in stages.

1st: Better enforcement. It would be cheaper to increase the traffic police, the fines or even outsource traffic management privately. There is so much to be addressed - Lane discipline, parking etc. May be acquire land, disused commercial complexes and convert to car parks. Junction management is our biggest failing

2nd: Encourage better public transport or transient private transport. By transient - I refer to Shanghai where taxi's are a plenty, people take them and move on, no parking issues etc. Parking is restricited or made very expensive.

3: Reduce traffic into town - Build overhead ring roads and build em big. Half the cars come into town since they need to get to the other side.

4: Our trucks and buses- slow, overloaded, unsafe. They slow things down. Why is it during a truck strike, even through more private vehicles emerge and yet things move faster.

Start on these points and then decide where widening is required.

2:

[mmxylorider]

I think the government/RDA should simply plan look at making bypasses for all NHs. Next once the road alignment is finalized and land is identified(assuming no land aquisition issues), lane building should start from outside in. Utilize the extreme portions of the land to contruct the road keeping a huge median. Future planned expansion can be done by removing the median. As is the historical trend, today's bypass will become tomorrow's arterial road for the new development that would've cropped up alongside the bypass leaving no option but to go to bypass # 2.

Originally Posted by ph03n!x

Elevated roads. There no space down here, so have to make it up by build higher up! How viable it is, I am not the one to say - just a thought

Even if not elevated roads (pillars and spans), just increase the gradient of the NH while passing through towns, that would greatly aid traffic on the highways. For those in Pune, the stretch from Nigdi to Dapodi (on old NH4) with the grade separators, cross overpasses and service lanes is an interesting piece of engineering. Road quality can be improved - but I can recollect how it was before in terms of chaos and traffic snarls.