The opposition to flyovers is no different from the opposition to coal-fired power plants. It may be well-meaning. And it may be valid. But to give in to either opposition results in a situation far worse than what it is trying to prevent.
Flyovers and power plants, the oppositors argue, do not really solve the problems for which they are intended to address. But of course they don’t. There are no permanent solutions in a world that keeps changing by the minute.
Flyovers, the oppositors say, are ugly. And they do not provide long-term solutions to the problems. Correct. But at least they can do something for the moment. They can tide us over to a time when we are ready with better solutions to the problem.
The alternative to rejecting flyovers is to do nothing about a problem that is right here right now. It is not a problem that is forthcoming. As you are reading this, traffic jams are occurring at the intersections where the flyovers are being proposed to be built.
What the oppositors have to offer right now instead of flyovers is nothing but verbiage. All talk. They have become such great believers in their own logic that they are convinced they can argue the traffic mess out of existence.
They talk of road widening here, flared intersections there, etc etc. But when is that going to happen? Tomorrow? Next year? The year after next? By the time they can swing it, if they can, their solutions shall have been overtaken by newer problems, requiring newer solutions.
The flyovers, on the other hand, are ready to rise. The money for them is there. Flyovers may not be the solution to the traffic mess. That much has to be conceded. But they buy everyone time. They are our transitional means of surviving the challenges of urban traffic woes.
Like coal-fired power plants, they are what we can realistically have for the moment. The Department of Energy says the country faces a power crisis by 2012 if no new power plants start swinging into action now. Well, coal-fired plants are all we can have. Do we do, or do we talk?