Category: traffic

Our infrastucture experts lag by a decade – KH road flyover mess solved

Ask a small kid and he would have given the solution. Ask an old man and his wiseness would have manifested as a solution. It took the Bengaluru infrastructure experts a few years to come up with a solution to the (stupid) KH Road flyover. What is wrong with the flyover many people might ask. Well I would ask – what is exactly right?

  • Its the world’s only flyover with a signal light at the center

  • Its the world’s only flyover where a cop sits managing traffic at this signal light

  • Its the world’s only flyover which is mismanaged to such an extent that it has made proper roads crooked just because it exists

  • Its the world’s only flyover (perhaps) which can crush an entire road beneath it and the people on it to death in seconds

  • Its the world’s only flyover where the span of the column can be considered so huge to cause regular traffic jams

  • Its perhaps the world’s only flyover that looks like an X in shape!

Yes we are talking about the great Double Road flyover. Finally atleast the mess it has created has been solved to some extent by keeping things the way they must be. See for yourself: (picture courtesy TOI)

Now for some questions on this way of traffic flow:

  • Isn’t one of this enough either mission road to residency road or double road to richmond road, why both ways the traffic now needs to flow on the flyover?

  • Is that design not silly ?

  • The bigger question is whether this flyover is now required at all once you see the traffic flow 🙂 ?

  • If they do decide next to remove this flyover, will it solve any issues if one ways are created accordingly?

  • Must a small stretch of road between richmond circle and VGP junction on double road make life hell ?

  • Will we never see architectural marvels in flyover making at all ?

  • What about the maintenance of such a flyover, what will be its state after say 10 years more ? Would you travel on it or under it ?

The issue is not with building flyovers. The issue is with people designing them and the limited scope of the needs of such a construction, that these people have in their narrow mind. Money flow aside.  Any guesses what the next great architectural marvel would be ? How about an underpass on both sides of this flyover ? Or better still a metro train running under this flyover ? Infrastructure planning is an art. Experience must speak by itself, without even a single question asked. You want an example, see for yourself the better part of Bengaluru infrastucture:

Image courtesy: BMIC – NICE

GPS based chaffeured cabs to the Bengaluru International Airport

Its about a month or two since the BIAL started off operations, and we have a handful of cab services that now ferry people up and down to and from the aiport. Of these two are appointed by the BIAL as official cab providers – Meru cabs (080 – 4422 4422) and Easy cabs (both seem to be from mumbai).

Both these providers have sourced Mahindra Logan cars from M & M in large quantities and I strongly believe this is the right option as the car is very spacious which is the most required thing for a weary traveller commuting miles together and for hours together. With a big boot, it only adds more value to use this car than perhaps any other car!

Add to this that these are chaffeured by drivers who wear proper uniform and are properly trained to behave with (weary) travelers and that the cars themselves have GPS so that they can be tracked for their subsequent assignments or in general on their whereabouts, and this makes the proposition of using these services pretty hassle free and safe. I heard that these cars have the option of automatically messaging the control room and getting deactivated if the drivers hoodwink customers in any way. I want my readers to confirm this though!

While these services are more point to point, there are two other services that are multipoint to airport on a sharing basis that costs a person just Rs.300/- onwards making that an even better proposition, barring the fact that the safety may be at question. Airlift and Zoom airport express services are two providers working on the sharing model and while the former operates innova cars, the latter uses tata winger cars for commutes.

For more details check the websites! And enjoy your drive to BIAL!

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It happens only in India

I had written about bad driving and stressed out lifestyles in my previous blog post. This post is somewhat related to it closely. If you are driving on a road and you see a lorry stopped in the middle of the road with a twig of leaves sticking out of it like as if it were a flowering plant, then what do you make out of it? Should you assme the lorry owner is relaxing on the road? Well, welcome to India.

In India such a symbol means the truck has taken a hit either with another, or has a flat tyre, or perhaps even a flat axle or engine. It also means that this truck which you see has no immediate plans of being towed away from the accident spot and it also does not say anything about how many people it killed in that accident.

Take a break and come back tomorrow, perhaps it wont be there on the street. And the driver of the truck, well he has already been recruited by another truck company to drive and crash a different truck tomorrow. This is the biggest pity in India and Benglurur particularly.

If its a small vehicle its a HIT & RUN case, if its a large one, its a HIT & DRIVER RUNS case. The occupants of such trucks walk away stealthily into the crowds even before someone understands who did what at the scene of crime. And the police have no records of who is driving the truck, the truck companies have no records of who they recruit and there are also no records of the lost lives in these accidents. Everything is conveniently put into a file which says HIT & RUN case – now closed.

So much so that the entire truck drivers association (or union or whatever nonsense you may want to call it) are against the government for asking them to install speed governors in their vehicles. Their grouse is that the vehicle consumes too much fuel if driven at lesser speeds purposely. And if driven at higher speeds, others bear the brunt of their driving and land up at hospital or even worse – HELL.

So the government and the unions are not only putting at risk many a life in the city, but also sometimes their own kith and kin by doing such immoral decisions at their own cost.

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