With so many highway movies doing the rounds, sojourning from city to city and state to state feels like a romantic prelude to a long
journey of self-discovery – till reality strikes. And just like a movie, the reality can be multilayered – varying from bad roads to gasping traffic and minimal road safety. But we promised you relief from those travelling conditions the next time we return with our
Open Roads series. And here we are, with more information about a whole new bunch of
intracity and inter-city expressways that not only reduce
commute time but also reshape a country’s landscape,
economy and way of life. In the last slideshow of this series, the journey begins from the
west coast and goes down south.
As we have mentioned before, expressways are limited-access roads designed for high-speed traffic. The economic impact of an
expressway network criss-crossing the country is all too obvious and the
Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has already recommended a total
e-way network of about 18,637 km in the country. Development work is being done in three phases and is scheduled to be completed by 2022. During the Interim Budget,
Finance Minister P Chidambaram also told the Parliament the road network in the country witnessed over sevenfold increase at 3.89 lakh km over the past decade.
Does that mean we may soon see an
e-way ecosystem similar to the interstate system in the US? Given the obstacles in terms of
land acquisition,
fund crunch and
slow implementation, it’s definitely going to take some time. Meanwhile, hop into the driver’s seat and go off exploring some super-fast roads you have not travelled yet. After all, it’s a journey with no end… and wheels will always need roads.
Image: Thinkstock Photos/Getty Images
