Urban transport planner N Ranganathan sees dark days ahead for the country’s already choking roads. He tells TOI-Crest that our government may just have woken up too late to the crisis.

Will our cities someday come to a halt?
Looking at the growing number of vehicles on Indian roads and the inadequate capacity to accommodate traffic, they just might. A recent estimate says the total number of vehicles in India will be 400-450 million in the next 20 years or so. Now we have nearly 60-70 million. Most of these vehicles will come to the cities. There will be efforts to face the situation though these will not be enough. For example, Delhi got the Metro. All cities are getting flyovers and new roads are also being built. However, the quality of service will fall, speed will reduce and total travel time will be more. Besides, there'll be greater risk of accidents. While the demand (for roads) is already accelerating, supply is crawling.