protest against balbharati-paud link road

This post is in strong protest against the construction of the proposed Balbharati-Paud link road. I feel very strongly about this issue so please bear with me if I sound like a pain.
The Pune Municipal Corporation has sought to sanction the construction of the Balbharati-Paud link road. This proposed road, which, mind you, was never part of the Corporation’s ‘Pune Development Plan’, will cut a swath through the lush forest cover that our hills have been blessed with. The veritable and venerable lungs of our city will be depleted by at least 10,000 fully grown trees to clear the way for this link road. The road will skirt ILS Law College and ARAI on its way to Paud, thereby forever damaging the green heritage and silent nooks and crannies of this comely hill range. My stand on this issue is clear. Any compromise of the green cover of any place in untenable. In fact, we all should be pitching in to increase the green cover as well as improve what we already have, not destroy what already exists. In the rarest of rare cases, a compromise of the green cover of a city can be made only if it is the absolute last resort and when all other options have been exhausted. In the present case, most definitely this compromise cannot be made, not just because it is wrong to compromise our quality of life for the perceived benefits of better connectivity and potential de-congestion of Law College road but also because this explanation does not stand to logic. In the crisp words of Enrique Penalosa - the ex-mayor of Bogotá who transformed the city from a crime invested depressing place to a vibrant ‘community’ city - ‘Trying to address traffic jams by building road infrastructure is like putting out fire with gasoline." Quite a few Puneites support the construction of the link road because they believe that this road will provide the benefits mentioned earlier. However, many studies in Europe and elsewhere have established that building new roads is not an answer to traffic congestion. Building new roads will only encourage people to use more private transport and within no time, we will see congestion on the new road as well. This will also result in traffic related delays, thus nullifying any perceived benefit of making this link road. This vicious cycle of more roads, more vehicles, more pollution (noise and air), more accidents, more stress etc is very comprehensively documented by Dr. Adhiraj Joglekar here. So, not only will the road destroy Pune’s green heritage, which is alredy under threat but will also not serve the purpose that it is purportedly being constructed for...a double whammy against the construction of this road, if ever one was needed. Also, the thinking behind the construction of this road suggests that we are in imminent danger of being sucked into the limited thinking trap of measuring our progress by the 'number' of roads we have and the number of vehicles we have on those roads. Again, I quote Penalosa and no one says it better than him - 'Children are a kind of indicator species. If we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for all people.'
The alternative solutions are drawn from the realisation that building more roads does not solve traffic problems. The most effective way in solving traffic problems, amongst other things, is by first creating a good mass transit bus system for the public, incentivising its use and disincentivising the usage of private vehicles. A good synopsis of the issue, including some photographs can he found here. Please sign the online petition provided on this page. This page also has another link that will give you the name and phone number or your area corporator. Please take some time to sign the petition. If you are in Pune and if you genuinely feel as I do, please call your area corporator to register your protest to the construction of the Balbharati-Paul link road. MORE POWER TO US!