Why we are on the fast road to nowhere
A flyway over Dematagoda and a new dual carriageway between Borella and High Level Road via Narahenpita has given the Colombo driver a faint inkling of what it means to drive properly.

But that's more or less the be all and end all of "highway development'' in Sri Lanka. Other key highways including the main artery roads remain urban wastelands of traffic and chaos.

New Delhi recently built a subway. The entire system was conceptualised by an Indian engineer. Now, Shanghai is purchasing the world's fastest passenger train system.

The stock answer given to any query about how Sri Lanka's transport and highway systems cannot keep pace with this kind of development in the rest of Asia is that there is no comparison.

The passenger transport system in the Western province particularly, is almost close to being dysfunctional. Meanwhile, there are no significant new mass transit systems being conceptualised in the country - and neither are there any highways.

Recently, a sustainable development expert who lives abroad, plopped an interesting theory in front of me. He says that countries like Sri Lanka should not take offers from aid giving nations -- specially the Japanese -- because these countries want to hand over aid to develop our highway systems just so that there will be enough smooth roads per square mile for them to keep their re-conditioned vehicles in the Sri Lankan market!

He says the only way Sri Lanka could mend the transport problem is by improving the mass transit systems such as the railways. Interesting argument, except that he hadn't considered that buses for instance, which definitely fall under the category of mass transit in my book, also traverse the highways. How transportation of people in buses can improve without a better highway network is something that beats me.

Moreover, if the Japanese have been trying to push their re-conditioned vehicle sales by giving us money to build highways, I figure that they would have been doing this for a long time now. But, there is no improvement in our highway system at all in the last few decades. The Colombo Kandy Road remains little more than winding ramp, and the Colombo Galle highway is so narrow at points that this artery definitely seems to suffer from a dangerous form of clotting.

If the Japanese have been giving us money to construct highways, either this money went unused because our politicians saw through the Japanese stratagem (!) or went unused because we as a race are determined to frustrate the Japanese (!) Either way, there are no highways that are testimony to the Japanese ambition to sell re-conditioned vehicles in Sri Lanka.

If the Japanese are offering us money to build highways, the answer should be to take it. Build them, and put more buses on these highways --- if we are not getting money from anywhere to have fast trains or tramways.

My sustainable development friend is worried that there will be a glut of Japanese cars in the country with more Japanese funded highways, which will lead to highly unsustainable development with carbon dioxide emissions and a gluttonous appetite for fossil fuels being the upshot.

But, we have to improve our ramshackle highway system (if I t can be called that) before we put any more mass transit on it. When we do, we can put more buses on these roads. My friend says the reason there is no public transport in the US, is that the motorcar lobby there keeps mass transit systems from being built in most cities.

There may be a grain of truth in that -- but Greyhound buses do operate on interstate highways. These interstate highways were built (not with Japanese aid one might add…) and they did not materialise at the touch of a magic wand.

A one car per family is derided by my ''sustainable development'' friend. I keep telling him, not to worry, that won't happen, not in Sri Lanka, not on your life.

But he insists that the Japanese are giving us money to build our highways so that there will be a one family one car policy or preferably one family one or more cars policy.

Though the thought of ugly gas guzzlers bumper to bumper is not pleasant to anybody, and though its correct that the appetite for fossil fuels keeps countries such as those in the Middle East entrapped in all kinds of exploitative power arrangements with the super power, there is also no going behind the fact that the Malaysian success story is enviable.

Mahathir Mohammed has asked his successor to pursue a one family one-car policy, and already, there is more than 60 per cent car ownership in Malaysia.

This means that Malaysia's highways have improved, and with the improvement in transportation the quality of life has improved. It does not mean that every Malaysian is on the streets with his or her car every day. But there is something egalitarian about the thought of having one family own one car -- because this is as opposed to some families owning all the cars.

Besides, "development'' is double edged, it has always been, and man is a consuming animal. What the "sustainable development'' experts need NOT do is to keep our country from moving forward, from having more highways. If we don't have highways, it translates also as lack of infrastructure, and if there is no infrastructure a country will not progress. The 'word' progress here used in most senses of the word except that one pejorative sense.

But, a system of developing highways should go in lockstep with the development of an efficient public transportation system -- fast trains, subways what have you. The problem in our country is that neither of these is happening.

Instead, we have gridlock in government, and economic stagnation with all the sustainable development experts preaching to us how we should develop ourselves. Perhaps a country not only needs an efficient highway and transportation system but also should possess one as a matter of pride. Its now history that J. R. Jayewardene wanted to establish a national airline because it was a prestigious project. Lee Kwan Yew the Singaporean PM was approached by Jayewardene for help on this matter, and Lee told him that an airline project was not Sri Lanka's priority as there were other needed projects that should precede it.

But, Jayewardene proceeded. There is no point talking of the merits or demerits of that. But a highway project and an efficient transportation network includes all elements. It meets an aching need for efficient infrastructure and a system of streamlined public transportation. But it also is a badge of pride for a country. Anybody will want to come to a country or invest in it - if there is a good system of roads coupled with efficient public conveyance that the country can boast of.

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