ECR: Road to hell

Like many other new highways of "global" standards that are snaking across India to cater to the newly affluent and motorised classes, the East Coast Road connecting Chennai to Cuddalore is a monstrosity.

Unlike the developed world, where the onslaught of motorisation and road building has largely spared people from the risk of direct collision with vehicles, India's highways, many of them aided by international financiers like the World Bank, are built only for vehicles.

Too bad that they are planted onto landscapes where people have been living for generations. These roads rip through such communities without the courtesy of even a subway or overpass, for people to cross to the other side. There are also no exits from the highway, no detours to spare the villages.

Little surprise that an estimated 65 people died on ECR during 2006.

There is this nice video on youtube that provides a glimpse to the anarchy that characterises neoliberal India's tolled "superhighways". Note the two-wheeler riders and cyclists travelling on the wrong side, practically coming into the speeding vehicles, the ramshackle commercial and housing structures that exist close to the carriageway, the occasional three-wheeled autorickshaws that transport those who cannot afford the high cost of motorisation and the complete indifference of the vehicular traffic to people's safety.



Of course, the best on youtube on the state of India's road traffic is here