Why Banaras is better off without a Metro

When I first read about Akhilesh Yadav's plans to build a Metro in Banaras, I thought the idea strange and absurd. In fact, I imagined all the digging up that would ensue and shuddered. It seemed as though the people in power who have come up with these plans know nothing about the city, or at least have failed to take into account some basic considerations.

Where is the space in the city to build the tunnels and the stations? Isn't the city too compact - the roads too narrow, the buildings too close to the roads, the neighbourhoods too near one another? Where would the Metro stops be located? As a resident of Banaras and a layperson ignorant about engineering and urban planning, I am skeptical that a Metro could work for Banaras. The main city spans only five kilometers south to north. There are only two main thoroughfares running south to north and two running east to west, traversed by the entire population of the main city, with neighbourhoods filling the open spaces in between. In most of these neighbourhoods, tall homes are built shoulder-to-shoulder and open onto the street. Narrow galis or lanes cut into these dense neighbourhoods. The main roads themselves are only a few meters broad and resemble lanes rather than avenues. The British built some of these in the early 1900s, converting the streams that used to crisscross the larger, open and forested area of Banaras. The main city then was located all along the river, consisting of dense stone quarters and lanes opening out onto the ghats.

Banaras was never built to accommodate the millions that call it home today, or the rising numbers of wheeled vehicles that crowd its roads today. It seems that is the basic fact that the administration needs to consider in order to transform the chaotic city into one that is organised and efficient. Of course, a Metro would be the fastest and cleanest way to get around. I love using the Metro in Kolkata and now in Delhi for those reasons. In those two cities, the Metro has also helped foster civic sense and awareness for women's safety. But in planning to build a Metro in Banaras, the government seems to be disregarding the nature of the city and miscalculating the leaps that can and should be made in its infrastructure.

In the last few months, happily, the government has made efforts to improve the existing roads and transportation systems. Roads that disintegrated during the monsoons or were dug up to lay underground sewers (a seemingly endless project in Banaras) have been newly lain and are finally usable again. Traffic police have been positioned at busy crossings, and several auto stands have been organised. These efforts have been visible and have paid off. It seems to me that the municipal and state governments should focus on sustaining these improvements in the older systems, so that they begin to make a long-lasting impact rather than die out, as has happened too often in the past.

Of course longer-term solutions to increasing and disorganised traffic in the city are needed. But those would perhaps require more of a reimagining of the possibilities for an old but rapidly modernising city like Banaras. I personally would like to see most of Banaras pedestrian or cycle-friendly, with only the bigger roads open to traffic, for old Banaras is built for walking. I have also imagined a fast but compact tram stopping at the bigger neighbourhoods on the main roads, and a steamer boat service going up the Ganga, stopping at the main ghats.