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Chandigarh: Cyclists and pedestrians – among the most overlooked and vulnerable users of India’s roads, whether in cities, towns or villages – had cause for celebration in Chandigarh on Friday, after the Punjab and Haryana High Court halted a proposed flyover at one of the city’s busiest traffic junctions. Proposed for the congested Tribune Chowk – named after the Tribune newspaper and situated along one of the city’s busiest gateways to New Delhi and much of Punjab and Haryana – the flyover had long been under consideration by the authorities as a solution to mounting traffic congestion in Chandigarh, where registered vehicles now outnumber residents: 14.2 lakh against a population of around 13 lakh.

Much to the delight of environmentalists and cyclists like myself, who periodically flee Delhi’s smog, gridlocked traffic, noise and relentless pace in search of Chandigarh’s tree-lined avenues, open spaces and altogether gentler rhythm of life, the High Court also delivered a defence of the founding ideals of this self-styled City Beautiful.

It urged the local administration to preserve the “sun, space and verdure or greenery” that the celebrated Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, who designed Chandigarh, had envisaged as central to the city’s intrinsic character. The court went on to state that flyovers and overbridges were impermissible under the Chandigarh Master Plan-2031, but sagely left the door open for alternative traffic-management measures, such as an underpass at the same Chowk.

Furthermore, the court observed that Chandigarh, independent India’s first purpose-built city, had been planned around pedestrians, cyclists, green spaces and public movement rather than the relentless expansion of motor traffic. Chief Justice Sheel Nagu added that preserving the city’s pristine environment required only “a little sacrifice by humans of their greed and lust”, through reduced consumerism and a shift from “plundering to protecting nature”.

The court also restrained the authorities from felling any of the 500–700 mature trees around the Chowk that the flyover project would have necessitated, many of them planted during Chandigarh’s formative years, from 1951 onwards. Additionally, it directed the Chandigarh Administration to “ensure and encourage the original ambience and character” of the city by minimising private motorised traffic and promoting public transport.

In effect, the court endorsed the arguments advanced by opponents of the flyover, who contended that such large-scale tree felling would come at a high ecological cost and run contrary to the very planning philosophy that........

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