Road Over Roads

The “Other” Meaningful ROR!
In Real Estate Terms, the acronym, ‘ROR’, implies ‘Record Of Rights’! That is a very important aspect of Real Estate. However, in this articles, we are talking of a completely different ROR, or two of them! A Road Over Road or even a Rail Over Road, or vice versa.
The choice between public and private transport has been an unanswered question for more than a century. While it was the railway services which had revolutionised public travelling, the advent of cars, some seventy-five years later, made the utmost needs for good roads a very important aspect of transport. Rails were fixed to the ground and the trains had to move only over them, thereby restricting their outreach. But roads can move left and right, around a tree or a hilltop; and reach out to wherever you may want to go.
The Romans were perhaps the first to build roads all over the countryside – with nice cobbled stones. And that was the way most cities had their roads. The concept of a ‘pacca’ black-topped road was invented in India, by a Scottish Civil Engineer John Loudon McAdam. That name has been somewhat immortalised as “macadam” roads.
And today our roads are paved or cemented, too. But you don’t see much of them. You only see a mass of traffic over our roads, these days. Just one long car parking zone, stretching for hundreds of metres at a time. Cars and busses and trucks. That is all you get to see.
With a booming economy, and with at least four motor car manufacturing companies in our country churning out more than a million vehicles every year, traffic jams are bound to happen. A huge number of square kilometres of good agricultural land are being put to speedy urbanisation. But the existing roads cannot be widened, for the simple reason that there are many multistoried buildings all along those roads, which cannot be easily demolished for any road widening. Even the super-luxury car makers like Audi, BMC, Mercedes Benz and Volvo sell more of their cars here in India, than in Europe, where their parent companies are based. No wonder we, in India, have more cars than roads!
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At one time, our first Prime Minister was shown as riding a bicycle, for we were considered a poor country to talk of cars. Then came Maruti-Suzuki in the early 1980s, itself, and change the entire scenario. Today we Indians have more than 70 different models of cars, Made In India, to choose from. And motorised two wheelers? And motorised three-wheelers? We also have much more than a million multi-axle transport carriers. And tractors. And trailers. And mini and midi transport vehicles. No wonder our roads are choc-a-bloc.
Many left-leaning theoreticians are of the view that motor cars should be banned; and only public transport must be encouraged. But that very leftist theory has never succeeded anywhere. For, motor-cars give jobs, directly and indirectly. Especially in our country where it is more fashionable to also have a driver, or a chauffeur, every motor car means this direct job. With tens of millions of chauffeurs in our country, it will be self-defeating to get rid of all private cars!
Whether we like it or not, we need to have more, and better roads. And since land in the existing urban complexes is simply not available to broaden the existing roads, we have no option but to build these “ROR”, that is new roads over the existing roads. We have already done quite a few. For example, the first of the more than 1 kilometre long Flyovers, those Roads Over Roads, that were seen, the Mohammed Ali Road Flyover, Dwarka Flyover in New Delhi, the one in Lalbaug – Naigaon, the Eastern Island Freeway, the CSMIA Road and the longest one of 11 kilometres, the PVNR Flyover in Hyderabad are great and successful examples of a certain possibility of building Roads Over Roads.
With more & more such Flyovers, or Roads Over Roads, we will get seamless commuting & travelling. This will save an enormous amount of Time of the users; and fuel and wear and tear of the vehicles. Time is too precious and fuel is very costly; and can be used more efficiently. Both are productive investments. The costs of building more and more RORs, Roads Over Roads, will be easily recovered in just a few years, while these RORs will last a good 50 to 60 years.
Zafar Iqbal