Bengaluru civic activists, on Sunday, wrote to Karnataka Chief Secretary TM Vijay Bhaskar asking him to roll back the government’s decision to allow vehicular traffic in Cubbon Park.
Heritage Beku, an organisation advocating to conserve Bengaluru’s heritage structures and spaces, urged the Chief Secretary to consider the impact that the government’s decision would have on the air quality in Cubbon Park.
The Bengaluru Coordination Committee, a committee of experts advising the state government on urban development policies in Bengaluru, is said to have advised the government to allow vehicular traffic in Cubbon Park starting Monday.
#TrafficFreeCubbonPark passed 30 Jun by @BBMPCOMM Council, tks 2 @BBMP_MAYOR w full support @PCMohanMP @ArshadRizwan , #police, #experts, #civilsociety & Horticult et al. Return 2 precovid times(!!),so it’s being rolled back Mon! Written 2 @CSofKarnataka n am sure he will sort it pic.twitter.com/ylh1LNYGy7
— HERITAGE BEKU (@HeritageBeku) August 23, 2020
Ever since the lockdown began in March this year, vehicular traffic was banned inside Cubbon Park. Earlier this year, Bangalore Rising had started a petition on Change.org demanding that traffic not be allowed in Cubbon Park like Bengaluru’s Lal Bagh.
Heritage Beku had also written to the Horticultural Secretary, Commissioner of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike asking for traffic to be banned in Cubbon Park. “Glad to hear that both the horticultural secretary, the BBMP Commissioner as well as several ministers were positive about this and supported this excellent move to keep Cubbon Park pristine and pollution free,” Heritage Beku said in its letter to the Chief Secretary.
In April this year, urban mobility experts along with civic activists had approached the traffic police with the issue. The traffic police had agreed with having no traffic inside Cubbon park as they felt that while managing full traffic might be difficult. Heritage Beku had then suggested that buggies, cycles and EV vehicles be provided inside the park to support the elderly, persons with physical disabilities and children.
On June 30, the BBMP Council passed a unanimous resolution for a traffic-free Cubbon Park.
“Therefore we were surprised to hear today that Bengaluru Coordination Committee plans to reintroduce traffic back into Cubbon Park this Monday, thereby putting an end to the current ecological status, and the painstaking build-up of the precious environment and air quality of Cubbon Park in the last five months,” Heritage Beku’s letter to the Chief Secretary adds.
Heritage Beku has demanded that the decision to reintroduce movement of traffic be rolled back. “We finally had a chance to see Cubbon Park at its pristine, aesthetic and environmental best, just like the traffic-free Lalbagh is. Now that we have seen and experienced how it benefited the park, it is a shame that our system chooses to roll back progress and good environmental practice by taking the easy route of infecting Cubbon Park with vehicles again,” the letter states.