URBAN JUNGLE
Green Streets …….Arun Bhatia
Efforts are afoot in Bangalore to make rainwater harvesting compulsory to address the problem of impending water shortage. There are other such proposals to counter the shortfall problem. I hear how waste plastic will be used to make roads. Have the city fathers considered studying the Chicago model? Chicago has 2,500 km of small service streets that bisect blocks, so the city is known as the alley capital of America. These alleys bisect Chicagos north and south sides and have garbage cans and garages that allow its main streets to be clean and less congested. The alleys are tough to maintain, are prone to flooding and dump runoff into a strained sewer system. So, Chicago is planning to retrofit its alleys with environmentally sustainable road materials under its Green Alley initiative. Water will penetrate the soil through the pavement itself, which consists of a new but little-used technology of permeable concrete or porous asphalt. Then the water, filtered through stone beds under the permeable surface layer, recharges the underground water table instead of ending up as polluted runoff. They say some of that water may end up back in Lake Michigan from which Chicago takes a billion gallons a year.