Green light to the future

Bangalore was a city made for waking and cycling, given its wide
footpaths, shaded avenues and its short distances. A half-hour ride
would invariably take you to the city’s outskirts. But today, a
half-hour crawl in your vehicle takes you barely a few kilometres,
given the traffic.
Now, while the metro promises to help you bypass the problem, it has
transformed the stretch of roads it traverses from its origin in
Byappanahalli to its destination on MG Road.
Byappanahalli on Od Madras Road, was really the outskirts and close to
the Isolation Hospital, where people with infectious diseases had to
be isolated far from the city. Now, Isolation Hospital is no longer
isolated and Old Madras Road hosts apartment complexes, super markets
and glitzy offices.
The metro then veers off Old Madras Road and cuts through
Indiranagar’s main thoroughfare, Chinmaya Mission Hospital Road. The
road, that was once desolate, had changed long before the metro
arrived. Save for a row of shops at the beginning of the road near
Adarsha cinema and a few near the intersection with Double Road, the
stretch only had a few KHB Houses and sprawling bungalows.
Though it was the main approach road to the locality, traffic was
sparse, with a few double decker buses lumbering up and down the road
periodically. And with no reason to widen it, the road was blessed
with footpaths, allowing its residents to do all their visiting and
shopping on foot. Today, the only walking possible in Indiranagar is
on the treadmills in the several gyms.
Leaving, Indiranagar, the metro presents a stark contrast as it crawls
past the historic temple car in Ulsoor. The tall, granite stone temple
car shed, that one saw vehicles, pedestrians and cows fight for space
on the narrow, bustling, winding road, marked by chaos and cacophony,
is now dwarfed by the tall metro piers. Today, the road that was once
and lined by old establishments and flower sellers, has been
straightened and widened, leading up to Trinity Circle.
And as it reaches MG Road, the metro obscures everything on the road.
The old colonial buildings, or what’s left of them, are the only
reminders of the road’s past.
Long before work on the metro was launched, planners and builders
presented a concept of the metro with artists’ impressions of the
metro on MG Road in the city’s newspapers. Of course, to the readers
would dismiss as farfetched and something one only sees in sci-fi
movies and comic books.
Today, it’s no longer an artists’ impression. The metro is here, in
concrete, steel and aluminium. With the metro, the city seems to have
put its past behind and switched to higher gear, literally taking
commuting to a new level.
vijaysimha@newindianexpess.com