Abstract
In 1947, during the year of independence, India’s national highway network was approximately 23,000 km. In 1997, national highways had a total length of 34,298 km. As of July 2013 India has multiplied thrice the distance covered by national highways (NH) connecting all the major cities and state capitals. By end of 2017, it is planned that the national highway network should be at 85000 km (12th Five Year Plan, 2012-17).
 Though it is an improvement in the infrastructure, we have to agree that there are many cons in the process. The highways have brought concentric expansion and appearance of sub-centers all along major road intersections. The land-use changes caused by these highways have converted the metropolises to megalopolises, hamlets emerging to bigger cities. The highways are aimed to provide better transport and to link one place to another in a fast mode. “You can start with land use, or you can start with transportation; in either case, the basic feedback leads inevitably to a hierarchy of central places and transportation links connecting them” [Moore and Thorsnes, 1994]. Land-use being the first to impact cities, eventually causes impacts on natural resources and also communities, livelihood, health, safety, etc. The progression of the urban landscape can be considered from a hybrid perception where diverse paradigms were focused in different periods. It is the need of the hour to integrate all the essential paradigms.
 This paper provides an overview of the issues and challenges caused by development of highways in India. Rather than covering every aspect of highways, it primarily focuses on those areas that are important from the users’ point of view. The paper first reviews the changes in Indian cities due to increasing coverage of highways, followed by a discussion on issues such as Land use split, settlement isolation, identity loss, to mention a few. Building on this background, the paper proposes further researches for the betterment of life in cities affected by Highways.
Highlights
All through the 1950s and 1960s, the promising American expressway and thoroughfare organizations began to extend, with highway planners paying attention, more or less wholly, on constricted cost-benefit and competence consideration in choosing how to realize their thoughts
By end of 2017, it is planned that the national highway network should be at 85000 km (12th Five Year Plan, 2012-17)
This paper provides an overview of the issues and challenges caused by development of highways in India
Summary
All through the 1950s and 1960s, the promising American expressway and thoroughfare organizations began to extend, with highway planners paying attention, more or less wholly, on constricted cost-benefit and competence consideration in choosing how to realize their thoughts. Landscape Architect McHarg’s ‘Design With Nature’, in which he put forward his viewpoint that the structure ought to follow more than just its purpose; it should as well value the natural context in which it is situated. “The engineer’s competence is not the design of highways,” McHarg explained, “merely of the structures that compose them -- but only after they have been designed by persons more knowing of man and the land.”. McHarg’s method to resolve the situation was the end-to-end use of map overlays. McHarg analysed the condition with deference to social values, or, “benefits and costs to society caused by the construction of a multipurpose facility such as a major traffic artery. There were many factors that went into the broad field of social values, including historic, water, forest, wildlife, scenic, recreation, residential, institutional, and land values”(Ian Mcharg, 1960). It is quite distressing that even today our Indian roads are not being worked out by overlaying the factors specified by McHarg in 1950s and 1960s
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