The Case of Bad Roads

The mankind has mastered many sciences – we have gone to Mars, photographed Jupiter and Titan, know a little more about the ocean floor and can understand the complex balance between the environment and human interference…

One of the age old sciences that mankind has mastered is architecture and construction. Especially in India, we are proud of the old temples sustaining earthquakes, the intricacies in the design of Ajanta, Karla caves and modern structures such as the Baha’i temple and many dams that were dubbed as national monuments.

But all this is lost when we talk about the road infrastructure in India. In one of her scathing articles Tavleen Singh, writing for the Indian Express, made a comment that for the money spent by PWD on construction of roads, we should have had roads better than Germany and US. But alas, that is not the case. The account books will have impeccable records of the money spent and road constructed. But the moment you step outside, the mediocrity of the entire endeavor is palpable.

Is it so difficult to construct a road that a mere shower lasting only a few minutes literally washes a road away? Are there no roads in Seattle, where it rains the entire year? Are there no roads in Germany because it snows a lot there? Even Brazil has better roads than India. If we dream of becoming a super power one day, then it is difficult to justify, why a road trip from Pune to Bangalore should take about 20 hours….

Let us not look into the corruption that goes on in the construction activity. Let us first step back and understand where the planning and design process can be improvised or introduced if one does not exist.

It was in the early industrial revolution era that someone realized that if we make goods at factory speed, we possibly cannot spend four-five days just for travel between London and Glasgow. There the idea of what we call Modern Roads was born. The Autostrada in Italy sealed the future of modern, fast, uninterrupted, access controlled travel. And even though it was not Hitler’s original idea, the Autobahn became a landmark project of Germany. It is said that the Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways (the Interstate system) in the US is the largest construction activity completed by humankind in the modern times.

India, however has not recovered from the lethargic pre-industrial period. True, we have the Golden “whatever”angle being built and the Mumbai-Pune and Baroda-Ahmadabad super highways are talked about a lot. But if you look at statistics, I really doubt if the so called pucca roads connect even 10% of India.

If you were to start from Chicago, you could be promised, that within 4 to 4-1/2 hours, you will be in Detroit – and that is 300 odd miles (480 km) of distance we are talking. But it appears we do not believe in speed…we may have national bodies of various authorities that deal with surface transport, but it cannot be doubted that we lack a policy on road infrastructure management.

The Indian Interstates

Clutching to our history, we still like to fight with our neighboring state, but in the fast moving world, that idea is as out-dated as George W Bush’s insistence that America is in Eye-rack for the good of that country. The Golden Quadrilateral is good, but it is far too short of what should be…. We need a highway system that is comparable to the German Autobahn or US Interstate system – North-South and East-West roads crisscrossing the country that connect at least all the major towns. And we are talking of towns here – not just major cities. If business has to grow and prosperity to follow, there should be no reason why someone from Kolhapur should not be able to make a day trip to Latur and Gulburga and be back to Kolhapur that night. If all the automakers are betting on India as future, that day trip should not be a pipedream.

The interstate system can be further extended as a part of the current Golden Quadrilateral System. Also, some changes can be made to the current highways.

1. All the highways should at least have four lanes (two in each direction) with a median strip.
2. The speed limit on the highways should be 100 KMPH away from populated areas and 80 KMPH in the populated areas.
3. The highways should be access controlled with suitable entry and exit ramps at strategic locations.
4. Non-access controlled service roads to facilitate the movement of slow moving or lesser horse power vehicles should service each access controlled highway.
5. Reasonable toll should be taken from drivers to allow them usage to such a system.
6. To promote mass transit, perhaps busses should be charged lesser toll than private vehicles.
7. The road construction in hilly area should also support the same speed limits as regular terrain.

We have seen the difference the modern phone system has made in business and commerce in early nineties. The road system should complement that by providing alternatives to quickly move goods and people from one place to other.

The Indian Railways

The railways are considered as the major uniting factor in a vast and diverse country like India. And whatever Tatas may say about the new affordable car, the After Ford Era is still distant as far as India is considered. The railways do not have to worry about the new highway system and will perhaps continue to provide a cheap, reasonable and fast alternative to freight and passenger traffic. But there is still a limitation to the railways. If you look back in the history, the Ohio-Erie-Miami canal system was made redundant because of railways. Until the railways came into picture, most of the commerce of the states of Ohio and New York was made easy because of these canals. But there was a limitation to the canals as well. One of the limitations that hit you on the forehead is that the canal is available only where you dig it. And it is also the case with the railways – they are available only where the track is…. Many Mumbaikars – after alighting from a train – search for a taxi, rickshaw or the BEST. The train does not take one home literally, unless one lives on the platform. Similarly, if you want to transport the freight to Murbad, you have to hit the road after coming to Kalyan. If railways had made that possible in last 50 years, we would not be discussing this…. And we all know the track record of the railway ministry. By the time Kalyan-Murbad rail line is approved and construction started, the project will have long run out its utility.

There is no reason to throw the railways out, but in my opinion, their utility is limited and my guess is that railways would be costlier to maintain than roadways (I have a feeling that I may contradict this statement in a different perspective.).

We need an elaborate highway system at various levels – at national level, it should connect all the major towns, at state level, it should connect all the district places and also important taluka or commercial towns and at district level, it should connect all the important towns and access by all the villages to a near by hub – a bigger town.

There are only two prerequisites that come to my mind: the road condition should be excellent, rain or shine and the drivers should follow all the rules to make their travels fast and safe.