Your Big Idea for our cities ?

From ITO, when you come onto the Ring Road just before the NOIDA toll road one can see a structure that looks like a cross between a flyover or a new metro line. In fact it is neither. This is the first elevated road that the city is building to cut commuting time to Lodi Road.

Initially this was a Commonwealth Games project designed to bring athletes from the Games Village to Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. But post the Games it will be used by regular traffic travelling from that side of the city to central Delhi and beyond.

But do such projects designed for a specific purpose work long term? With the kind of money invested in them, it is time to think whether they actually help make our cities better? Or should we look at other options?

Slate has an interactive project asking their readers to contribute ideas to make their cities better. And many have written with ideas.

Our cities too are facing similar challenges. Most of the us live around abysmal conditions that we think will never change. We just build higher walls or move to better colonies. But every morning when we travel to work there it is again. Staring back at us.

However a little bit of innovative thinking and learning from experiences of cities in other parts of the world would help improve our daily experience of living and traveling in the city.

What is your big idea to transform our cities?

Cartoon: www.polyp.org.uk
www.speechlessthebook.org