By Pushpendra Kumar : This is the tragedy of indian urbanization that the people responsible and expected to have a vision of tomorrows they fail poorly. The railway crossing in Meerut on Delhi-Meerut road is a nightmare since 2000 and the need to broaden the road was a legitimate demand atleast. But the planners of this ancient, historic and happening metro city of NCR are mooned with ideas for ten costly years. In 1947 a mare 300000 vehicles were there and now India has crossed the 10,00,00,000 mark, simply Meerut has the same trends. The responsible authorities took a ‘legitimate’ 10 years time to conclude on facilitating a flyover on that narrowed railway crossing. You just can not tolerate to be there at the time when barriers are down and the real image of civil society and administration seems to be competing each other for the bad reason. This is only the wealth and prosperity has gone up in many urban families but the responsibility and civic-n-driving sense are on the knee to shame.The cars, bushes,trucks and bikers queue-up in more then 3-lanes on both the sides while the whole traffic is shifted to one side of the one way road, thus creating a bottleneck jam. The pressure horns, the deadly pollution of fuel and dust makes the scene grim and helpless. The Meerut traffic police not even has the idea to divert the traffic via Baagpat road to bypass to ease the load at crossing. The flyover is not at all a decision to praise because the day it will be operational the snarl of traffic will be there too. They are too late to plan, the reason is they have not planned the flyover projecting the pressure of traffic on road for next 20 years, atleast. The planners are of outdated brain and possibly donot know the environmental consequences of jams on road. Do they bother to know this data which is for Delhi and the pattern will be same for Meerut-
Average 90 mins time spent daily by a vehicle in congested traffic
2.5 litres of fuel, a car wastes in jams per day (0.75 litres for two-wheelers)
Cost of fuel wasted by city cars in a day Rs 7.5cr
Cost of fuel wasted by two-wheelers | Rs 2.5cr
Govt subsidy on wasted fuel | Rs 1.5cr
5 years is the loss of carrier due to traffic jam
Already, India is the world’s fourth largest carbon dioxide (CO2) emitter with emissions amounting to1.34 billion tonnes per annum8 behind China, US and Russia.Even if India holds on to its promise of keeping its per capita emissions lower than that of developed economies, we will soon outclass Russia to become the third largest emitter and, if unchecked, will ultimately catch up with the other two.Where are the town planners and administrators! Wake up and dismantle encroach on roadside, make new safe public transportation system for commuters, divert the routes and execute the plan swiftly to save the valuable exchequer of public for other needed areas.