Saturday, December 03, 2005
Highways as Agent of Change
Tomorrow's NYT is carrying a long and fascinating feature story by Amy Waldman on India's new highway system, the first part (Golden Quadrilateral) of which will be completed next year, three years behind schedule. Waldman uses the emerging highway system to capture the changes that are roiling India as a result of accelerated growth and development. The most fascinating nugget in there was that in the 50 years since independence, until the GQ project took off, India had built exactly 334 miles of four-lane roads. The GQ alone, by comparison, features 3,600 miles of six-lane roads, with an additional 36,000 miles in the works as part of the new highway system. I just wish she had spent more time in parts of the GQ outside of the Delhi-Calcutta stretch.
