[Moved out of the Karnataka Roads PPP post] Without legislation that stops ribbon development, every new highway and bypass road (meant to by pass the townships) will be engulfed with surrounding development.
Even Mumbai-Pune expressway has not been spared from the above and towards the Pune end, we have numerous junctions sprouting and malls along highway which have driveways opening straight on to the highway!! Wakad in Pune has a Shoppers Stop and several more Corporates on the highway.
If you look at Western stats - country roads are most dangerous and Freeways / Motorways are most safe - because they are free of cycles, pedestrians and junctions. But in India, a highway can have have everything on it - from pedestrians, bullock carts, cycles, rickshaws and multitude of junctions - lots of elements trying to go across and perpendicualr to faster vehicles on the main carriage way. All this = 80% fatalities on Highway as reported above.
Frankly its a joke because highways / freeways connect cities, but we repeatedly find our highways become inner city roads - no wonder we are forced to constantly find ways of implementing BRTS or elevated rail (Metro as some like to call it) on such stretches. No wonder such wide 6-8 lane roads are made useless and clogged with traffic across junctions which should not have cropped up in the first place (then we try and rescue the situation by way of flyovers and underpasses / magic boxes).
Basic engineering and town planning concepts. All missing and we have had 60 years of it. But there is no evidence of us doing anything different as yet.
ASJ
PS: please refer to http://better.pune.googlepages.com/freewaysarefreewaysandcityroadsarec.html if need be
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Started a gyan page
ASJ, I tried a gyan page on the subject recently (See Ribbon Development), please join in to restructure or edit it. While reading around, I found some Ribbon prevention guidelines on Maharashtra PWD website. I will try to find more information on other state's or NHAI website because I am sure provisions to deal with Ribbon growth exist (like IRC), but are not followed in spirit.
I am sure NHAI itself has realized the mistakes it made in the aggressive NHDP (Golde Quadrilateral etc) programs by not focussing enough on access control and ribbon development. I recall a speech by PM Mr Singh himself last year where he said that NHDP will focus more on access controlled expressways than just widening existing highways. I bet these thoughts were driven a lot from the fatalities and lower-than-expected gains in average speed after recent highway widenings.
As for the recent Road PPP announced by KArnataka government, you do see some related talk (service roads, access control, barricades) but I am more curious to know who will get to be the local planning authority (LPA) around the upgraded state highways. After all, development planning of area around the road determines its usage, isn;t it?