Elevated Roads or Elevated Risks?

      

 ​By Bharti P Jain

​As an architect and long-time resident of the Doon Valley, I feel compelled to raise a concern that has been absent in much of the discussion on Dehradun’s traffic projects: the limits of our valley’s carrying capacity and the ignored geology beneath our feet.

Carrying Capacity cannot be ignored for both Dehradun as well as Mussoorie :-

Mussoorie is a hill station with natural limits—terrain, ecology, and services cannot endlessly expand. Yet, projects like the proposed Rispana Bindal Elevated Corridor (RBEC) are being promoted as traffic solutions without addressing these limits.

Ask yourself: where will the cars go once they do reach Mussoorie? There is still no proper public parking plan! Without parking and visitor management, every new road is just pushing the problem further uphill.

Four existing roads and an under-construction Dehradun Mussoorie Ropeway :-

Dehradun already provides four access routes to Mussoorie: Rajpur, Kimadi, Maldevta and Misrajpatti (proposed). If tourist traffic were distributed across these four roads, the city traffic congestion at Rajpur and Kimadi could be eased naturally.

The Dehradun–Mussoorie ropeway is the single biggest addition to the hill town’s connectivity. It is designed to carry thousands of visitors daily without adding cars to already choked roads. Between the ropeway and the four routes, we already have the framework for sustainable mobility—what is needed is management, not more concrete.

This was, in fact, the vision of the Smart City Plan: manage inflow at entry points, not dump it all into one road.

The Geological Blind Spot :-

Traffic engineers are debating lanes and spans, but few are asking: what happens to our rivers when their beds are excavated and concreted for pillars? Riverbeds in Doon carry metres of loose silt and boulders. Foundations will mean massive excavation and disposal of soil—lakhs of cubic metres.

If dumped along rivers, beds will rise, increasing flood risk. If concreted, seepage into aquifers will be blocked. These rivers are not just seasonal drains; they are the veins that recharge our groundwater. By obstructing them, we risk floods in the monsoon and droughts in the summer.

Why This Matters to All of Us :-

Dehradun already faces falling groundwater levels. RBEC may give us a temporary traffic bypass, but it will take away something far more precious—our water security and ecological balance. We, the residents of this valley, must decide: do we want short-term relief at the cost of long-term survival?

​A Call to Residents  :- 

This is not just an engineering issue. It is a citizens’ issue as well. Our city’s future cannot be decided by traffic charts alone- while geology, ecology, and daily life are left out of the conversation.

I urge fellow residents of Doon to come forward, speak up, and insist on solutions that respect both mobility and nature. If we stay silent, we may one day find our valley trapped between congestion above ground and crisis below it.

  

(Bharti P Jain is Principal Architect at P Jain & Co.;

Convenor, Intach Dehradun Chapter, and Member of Dehradun Citizens’ Forum.)

Metro Mirage

                                   Why Long Flyovers Don’t Belong in Dehradun

The proposed 26-km elevated road for Dehradun isn’t a single stretch — it’s split into two major corridors. That means instead of one oversized intervention, the city gets two giant flyovers cutting across different neighbourhoods and river valleys. This distinction is critical, because the impact is not concentrated in one zone — it spreads disruption across the city’s landscape.

 

City Scale & Urban Form:

Big cities already have dense high-rise skylines, wide multi-lane arterials, and many existing flyovers or expressways. A long elevated corridor blends more naturally into that built form. Dehradun, by contrast, is a valley town with a mid-rise, low-density character. Having two separate elevated roads doubles the visual intrusion, creating twin concrete spines that dominate human-scale streetscapes.

Length vs. City Size:

In metros, a 20–30 km elevated expressway is only a fraction of the overall road network. In Dehradun, two flyovers together spanning 26 km proportionally overwhelm the city’s road system. Instead of easing traffic discreetly, they slice through its heart in two directions — like putting metro-style corridors on stilts across a mid-sized hill town. Both proposed flyover sections run along fragile riverbeds, the Bindal and the Rispana rivers with soft , spongy river beds. Elevated roads will erase their visibility, destroy their cooling microclimate, and erodes any chance of riverfront revival. Two separate elevated roads mean both rivers — once heritage water systems — get buried under concrete.

 

Visual and Cultural Fit:

In big metros, flyovers look “normal” because residents expect massive infrastructure in a concrete jungle. In Dehradun, however, heritage has always been tied to open vistas of rivers, canals, colonial bungalows, and forested ridges. Two elevated corridors running across different parts of the city fracture this identity and turn the valley into a transport corridor.

 

Tourism & Economy:

Dehradun’s charm is a key driver of its economy — tourism, education, cafés, bakeries, and a walkable lifestyle. Two flyovers instead of one ensure that multiple city hubs lose their riverfront, skyline, and walkability appeal. Visitors will increasingly bypass Dehradun, treating it as a transit city instead of a destination. We see limited private gain at massive public loss.

 

Dehradun is a two-wheeler city, with the majority of daily trips on scooters and motorcycles. These vehicles already weave through traffic easily and gain little from long flyovers. Pedestrians, cyclists, rickshaws, and bus users — who form the city’s mobility backbone — won’t benefit at all. The main winners are a minority of private car users who may save a few minutes. But the whole city bears the cost: Two river corridors permanently scarred. Valley skyline broken in multiple places. Neighbourhoods cut off from walkable access.

Smarter Alternatives:

Dehradun doesn’t need metro-scale flyovers. Smaller interventions can solve traffic pain points. CMP and Smart City have proposals for widening choke-point intersections, Building short bypasses outside congested hubs, and Strengthening public transport and shared mobility. We can restore rivers as green transport spines with walking and cycling tracks.

 

Citizens’ Appeal:

What looks like progress on a planning map could feel like concrete domination when built over the Bindal and Rispana. We don’t oppose progress. We oppose outsized solutions that erase the very soul of Dehradun. As citizens, we ask for a green, hill-view centric city rather than a concrete-view city. Let visitors see the Shivalik hills, trees, and open blue skies.