It is time we should go for elevated highways instead of bypasses as the remaining pieces of paddy are precious to us.
In a country like India, especially Kerala, where people are thickly populated land acquisition is usually very difficult.
We have been experiencing this for the past several years. Wherever we have filled up earth to create roads we have faced problems even today.
For example, Mavoor Road in the city was made after filling paddy fields in most of the places in the 1960s.
The people living around Mavoor Road are still suffering from flash floods and water-logging even during summer rains.
It is the same case in Thampanoor, in Thiruvananthapuram. Wherever we have built roads, by filling land the flood level goes up during the monsoons.
This is called ecological imbalance, while we are preparing built up the earth for road formation and other formations of buildings. While building roads, bridges and other man-made structures, we don't respect the original natural settings.
The Keezhattur bypass issue is one among many which might happen in future when you go for acquisition of land.
When we try to alter the natural environment, without knowing the consequences, the environment itself bounces back in a very unnatural way.
In Japan where the density of population is higher compared to other Western countries, most of the new roads are elevated highways.
Some of these roads are going up to 100 Kms. This may be costlier than roads on the ground, but while considering the future of the generation to come, this will definitely be a good decision.
Here we don’t give value for the time; we forget that time is money. The idea of elevated highways will never disturb the existing environments. In many international cities, the number of floors is like multi-storey buildings which mean there are four or five levels of highways.
(The writer is an architect)
