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]

>>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

[usha123]

'taking it underground is possible'

are you sure that it is possible in every part of Bangalore? I remember my b-i-l, who is a hydraulics engineer academician telling me sometime back that a. there is a lot of rock underground in Bangalore b. the high subsoil water levels can inundate the underground tunnels..do you have any information/clarity on this..

while I completely agree with you that some lines have to be drawn, for example, entering Lalbagh is a big no no to me, I am a little ambivalent about this whole development vs environment debate...I would love to have the trees, but...(just to set my credentials right :-), personally we built/live in (Bangalore) a eco friendly soil cement block house with rain water harvesting and solar heaters and have planted 8 trees on the road in front of our house and recharge ground water, use buses, etc, etc)

[kingsly]

The water levels only make it harder/more costly .. not impossible.

There are tunnels that run under rivers.

[vinay_ks]

If you look at the Metro's Detailed Project Report(DPR) it does not even mention if the underground route was even considered for R.V.Road/Nanda road.
So we dont even know if they tested the structure here and saw if it was ok.

The DPR does mention a alternate route(Jayanagar 11th main). This route was then discarded because there was apparently not enough space, etc ! So basically its ok to take over the park on nanda road..that is considered 'expendable'.

The real issue is the lack of public consultations. If that had really happened, then we could have all together figured out underground/aletrnate path etc..

[manjunaths]

>> Who decided that for 25k-30k people the rest of the 99.5% of the city should sacrifice something

[vinay_ks]

let me again stress- no one is saying there should not be safe travel options to the airport.the argument is that a high speed rail link is not desirable