All photos from Dance In A Triangle
The blog Dance In A Triangle has been covering the deforestation of Wijerama Mawatha well. All the trees are now gone. While roads need to be expanded, one should ask what roads need to be expanded, and what can be preserved. Destroying these proud old trees is really a shame, and may not be the best investment for future generations.
Wijerama is a two lane road that connects the sorta arterial Bauddhaloka Mawatha (BMICH road) with Horton Place and Ward Place. The alternatives to Wijerama are Kynsey or Baseline Road, or the Independence Ave loop, which is baffling. If you look on the map it does make a bit of sense for it to be a bigger road. That said, I haven’t noticed heavy traffic there, except at school times, and it’s part of a coherent and leafy neighborhood, comprising the area around Gregory’s Road, Independence Square, SSC, etc.
While it is nice to have bigger roads now, it can be more valuable to have nice neighborhoods later. And building for cars is not a sustainable plan for a city. Colombo desperately needs walking neighborhoods for people to live and shop, and public transit. This is what builds lasting commercial and real estate value, and the Colombo 7 area is already prime for that.
Again, please read Dance In A Triangle’s post on this. She’s there and has a definite opinion on the tree culling, which is that it’s bad. I do understand the need to widen roads, I mean, the amount of two lane arteries in Colombo is ridiculous. The widening of Thimbirigasaya, for example, is long overdue. The question is whether the verdant and lovely street of Wijerama could have been preserved. I don’t know, but it’s too late now.
Are they cutting trees on both sides of the road or only one side?
BTW looking at the pics, i don’t think there was a way to expand the road without cutting down trees or pulling down walls if you try to center the trees (as in some parts of the galle road).
anyway the environmental cost of development. hmmm… :/
Indi,
they are not widening the road.
There are some small trees planted on one side of the road, close to where the others were uprooted. The paving stones also seem to be ready to be laid.
The land on which the stupa has encroached does seem to be larger though.
Gregory’s Road was nicely expanded with minimal environment damage. The trees are intact and it actually looks better than ever. Good parking space built in as well. I guess they couldn’t do the same with Wijerama Mawatha, which is a shame. Still, plenty of nice roads in Colombo.
I’m pretty sure the CMC/MoD/whoever must know enough to regrow the trees, so in a couple of years it should look back to normal again, perhaps.
That’s what I’d heard, but read this from Dance Triangle.
“Subsequent to this blog post, my colleagues and I have made phone calls and spoken to the CMC workers cutting the trees. The reason for cutting the trees is to widen the road, and apparently they did attempt to build the road around the trees, but then couldn’t be bothered, decided the trees weren’t important, discovered it wasn’t feasible.”
Seriously… if the road needs to be widened it needs to be widened. Yes its sad that trees have to go but you can always grow some more trees can’t you? If one is so environmentally conscious and finds cutting down trees so abominable why use vehicles at all? Aren’t you supporting the burning of fossil fuels and the degradation of the environment? Why not use the good old bullock cart to get around then, the only fumes polluting the environment coming from the bull’s backside? The roads in Colombo are generally impossibly narrow and cramped. This needs to change.
A couple of years? I’m all for progress, but a slightly wider road that at most times of day isn’t too congested makes little to no difference, not least due to bottlenecks at either end.
There is very little beauty in Colombo other than the natural environment: ugly glass-fronted new buildings compete with run down old buildings for the most part. These magnificent old trees also distance us from the horrible pollution of the knackered vehicles using the road. My lingering memory of my first visit to Colombo many years ago was of trees such as these, their majesty a treat for the senses, benefiting rich and poor alike.
The CMC knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
This is what we’ve heard. Have noticed the area around the stupa too, don’t know how they’re going to overcome that for this “road”. Granted, the CMC guys just do what they’re told. Guess we just have to wait and see how events unfold.
LOL yes, a couple of years. Are you thinking of magic trees?
then maybe 10-20 years. Since the trees are already taken down, their is no use crying over it.
If the people who lives and works there sign a public petition and hand it over asking for minimal environmental damage in future that might work.
And i do remember Gota saying about protecting the old architecture & green environment in the city. But our top people ARE known to say something & doing the opposite.
But most probably this can be the work of the CMC since most of the usual development like road development is done by the CMC.
They’ve been cutting down trees like madmen. Due to the Highlevel Road expansion, all of the old trees near Maharagama also got cut down. :(
there is Gregory’s avenue that runs parallel to Wijerama, and is used when the Wijerama stretch is inaccessible. If we are making uniflows in some parts of the city, then it makes sense to make that a principle for other sections as well. And one could have used Wijerama and Gregory’s Ave in parallel. Wijerama only gets congested during the school traffic, but it’s time schools began thinking about car pooling and other ways to control the congestion. We shouldn’t cut trees just for two hours congestion in the morning and at lunch time. But are we sure improving roads is the only reason? some people are talking about a market for the “maara” wood, and others point out that someone must be making a killing from the paving! I heard that a University of MOratuwa study is showing that Colombo’s temperature has risen by 1 degree because of all the concrete.
You come off as being an utter nutter- anyways when the temp rises due to less vegetation in Colombo and you’re sweating through and through I hope you remember that you supported this change. I mean seriously, what use is gaining the world only to lose your soul?
They are just grabbing land, nothing else.
Cutting down a few trees is losing one’s soul? I mean really? Do you realize that trees were probably cut down once upon a time to build the place where you live in? Colombo as far as I can remember has been a hot, crowded and dirty (not so much dirty now) place. There needs to be development and this may entail – shock, horror – cutting down trees. Sri Lanka has much bigger problems to worry about than a few trees on some random road in Colombo.
Actually, Gregory’s Rd is quite dangerous, especially between Maitland Crescent and Wijerama. The road runs inches from huge trees, and often several inches of roots jut into the road. In addition, the road dips and rolls. At speed, a moment’s lapse of concentration will have a car hitting a tree or being flipped over if it just touches a root. You have to drive down the center of the road. You can’t have trees IN the road. Whether Wijerama Mw should be widened or not is another matter, but if it is being widened, they have to cut the trees down or take a huge chunk of private property and have the trees in the middle like Green Path.
Wijerama does get pretty jammed at rush hour too, and part of the prob is vehicles having to skirt tree roots. It also has to be cleared of fallen branches after a heavy rain.
The remaining weeping willows down Torrington Avenue (Independence Ave) have been cut down.
Went walking there today. Only the stumps were left.
Should be replaced with Brazilian rainforest trees (not Na trees). The weeping willows looked hideous in my opinion.
This is a Crime. As these tress are big and situated in Colombo, it was easily exposed to the Author. This is common in most of other roads development projects too. There are very few in Our Engineering Personnel today thinking, before ordering to cut any tree whether, removal is exactly required,or see any alternative method to save it or how it is benefiting us, how it is looking nice.
They must think that once a Big Tree cut, no 1000 planting tress even compensate the loss.
Shocked!!!