CHENNAI: The proposed elevated expressway along Old Mahabalipuram Road “will probably benefit land owners outside the city and not commuters,” says Peter J Park , an internationally known urban planner and architect. Many cities in developed countries are shying away from such projects, he adds.

Cities in developing countries can avoid the mistakes made in developed countries. “Chennai has an opportunity to skip the ‘failure phase’ the US had to go through and learn from our mistakes,” says Park.

The man who served as planning director in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Denver, Colorado says he brought down a flyover over the Milwaukee river because it limited access to the people. He replaced it with an at-grade boulevard. “Flyovers serve only those in cars. People cannot walk a flyover.”

Even traffic at the popular Gemini flyover, says Park, can be managed without a flyover. “Streets need to be in a grid format and not dead ends. This will not only increase access but also increase the value of these streets,” he says.

On Saturday, Park will hold a workshop for Chennai Metro Rail where he will provide inputs on development of mass transit nodes in the city with the Koyambedu station as a case study. The workshop will look at best practices across the globe and develop an action plan for implementing it in Koyambedu. He will also talk about transit-oriented development at Anna University.

The associate professor adjunct, department of planning and design, University of Colorado, will show how cities in the US and around the world are shifting from automobile-oriented model to a more people-friendly model. “Zoning earlier meant dividing the map into categories like residential or commercial. But ideally, it should be mixed and the focus should be on making short trips easier,” he says.

Some of the changes Park has brought about in cities across the world include reducing parking space along transit corridors, improving feeder services, and enforcing ‘ground-level transparency’. This means the ground floor of a building cannot be an opaque wall. “People on the street should be able to see what is on the ground floor. It adds to safety as there are more eyes on the road and increases retail value,” he says.

