Now, everyone seems to be on the same page for this clean andgreen idea, since Oxford Circus will also be one of the stations on London’s new Cross rail link [it opens in 2022] that connects the city with its eastern and western suburbs. As we read through the development plan shared on the City of Westminster’s official website, we began to think of our dear Bombay’s woes when it came to air quality. Could something like this be replicated here? Imagine if we could pull this off on a small scale, in say one of the business districts in the original city like Fort, Nariman Point or Ballard Estate that are already subject to high traffic during peak hours. Even if this were to be adopted on alternate days, it could be a good experiment to study the pattern and impact of such a decision. While the streets and roads of SoBo might aid such plans, as we move northward, and into the suburbs the bigger nightmares emerge. Take Hill Road in Bandra or Dadar’s TT Circle. Both are pollution hotspots for different reasons. Can the car-free model ever work here? The Oxford Circus plan is as close to home as can possibly be. The disruption and added pollution and environmental damage caused by some of our city’s infrastructure projects are side-effects that need urgent addressing as well. While it might be afootnote in this column, its far-reaching impact on an already-battered city will require reams of newsprint to spell out, forget about the solution-finding part. We will leave that to the civic gods and experts to deliberate anddiscuss its feasibility. And, hopefully, put into action such plans at somepoint in the near future.

The impending, bigger issue here is the need to improve Bombay’s urgent, critical need for pollution-free, green open spaces. In a space-starved city like ours, this remains an omnipresent challenge. Post the pandemic, people [we hope] have gradually begun to understand the need to adopt a healthylifestyle, engage in some form of physical activity and practise eco-friendly means of moving around like walking, or bicycling. This makes it even more practical to aid, support and develop such options in our city. Bombay boasts of some of the best brains in architecture and urban planning, and I am sure they will be able to offer inspired plans that can aid our multi-dimensional woes. But we need to start somewhere, and soon. In our quest to meet mega infrastructure project deadlines, the comparatively smaller, but equally important issues that plague the city cannot be pushed under the carpet. In their attempt to right previous wrongs, busy Oxford Circus looks set to get a makeover. One can only hope that our decision-makers don’t leave our polluted neighbourhoods to become circuses of chaos and congestion in their pursuit to reach bigger, sometimes unreasonable goals. 

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mid-day’s Features Editor Fiona Fernandez relishes the city’s sights, sounds, smells and stones...wherever the ink and the inclination takes her. She tweets @bombayana

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