Before too long, however, the bridge acquired a less flattering reputation in urban planning literature for generating the very problems it was meant to solve. The bridge opened up the city to urban sprawl and traffic gridlock which the authorities could not even pretend to control. So in 1988 İstanbul welcomed a second Bosporus bridge to patch up all the problems created by the first. This bridge was meant to allow intercity traffic to bypass İstanbul altogether. Commuting traffic would go over the first bridge; long-distance traffic would go over the second. A second bridge, we were told, would relieve congestion and conserve İstanbul's greenery.That just didn't happen. Even before the inaugural ribbon was snipped, there was vast speculative investment on the Asian side of the bridge. Huge sprawling neighborhoods began to sprout all the way from Kavacık to the hills behind. Lo and behold, a pledge that there would be no entrance or exits for at least 25 kilometers on either side of the new bridge to discourage commuters was instantly broken. Twenty years on, an infinitesimal (less than 2 percent) portion of the second bridge's traffic is intercity and while İstanbul has grown exponentially, the pace of urbanization along the route of the second bridge has been seven times that elsewhere. The satellite view from space reveals some 4.7 million square meters of forestry have disappeared. It is not surprising that in the last 20 years, the average temperature of the city has crept up one degree Celsius.
So what are we to make of promises that İstanbul will be treated to yet a third bridge, further up the Bosporus, this time to make up for the deficiencies of the other two? We don't know for sure where the bridge will connect. As with the construction of the previous bridges, the route is kept secret to discourage property speculation. Or at least to keep its numbers down. The leader of the opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP) İstanbul organization announced this week that he had discovered evidence that the bridge will cross the water just beyond the village of Tarabya to Beykoz on the Asian side, transecting the forests on either side.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter where the bridge actually goes. There are already reports that land in İstanbul's Asian hinterland, nearly as far away as Gebze, has been busy changing hands. Wherever the bridge goes, urbanization will follow in its wake. No one can have confidence that such a bridge will not destroy what green spaces İstanbul still enjoys. The area around the Ömerli Reservoir, on the Asian side, is already vulnerable. Apart from being a vital watershed, it has a unique microenvironment created by moist air blowing in from the north encountering the warmer front from the Marmara Sea. There are some 2,000 species of plant in the greater İstanbul region, 150 varieties more than the entire United Kingdom. Unfortunately, one of the species that may suffer the most in the wake of a new bridge will be our own.
The General Directorate of Highways has yet to produce an environmental impact study demonstrating that a bridge will not precipitate climate change and that less rain will not fall on a smaller catchment area. At the same time, greater urbanization will lead to increased climate change. What we need to see is a plan -- where İstanbul will grow and how the environmental impact of that growth can be minimized. The bridge will cost $4 billion, and its proponents say it will be less polluting than its older cousins by having two of its six lanes dedicated to public transport. Another two lanes by rights should be reserved for lemmings. It will be a conduit for a city marching to its own destruction.
