silkboard's blog

Yes or No for BRTS - stats and numbers?

29 April 2008 - 11:49am — silkboard

There are multiple threads popping on BRTS here and elsewhere, thanks to the situation at Delhi and Pune. Here is one more, but focused only on gathering statstics required to support or counter the BRTS decisions. What would be realistic ridership targets for a BRTS at Bangalore, Pune or Delhi - basically, size of target market? What is the current profile of road space usage? What is the average commute distance in these cities (Delhi, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad)?

BETL pics - ready by Sep 2008?

23 April 2008 - 6:01pm — silkboard

Good friend Siva mailed in some pics of the elevated road currently under construction.

New e-procurement portal - transparency!?

21 April 2008 - 10:42am — silkboard

I didn't know about this new e-procurement portal launched last year by the state government. Have a look here (site isn't setup right, watch the warnings). What should interest us most is "transparency". There is a section intended for "citizens", cool! But the citizen's page doesn't have much right now. A list of tenders is available, which shows up only two items. There is a news and information link too, but that leads to a third party commercial website.

Facelift for lakes - just new fences or more?

16 April 2008 - 1:14am — silkboard

Back in January, BBMP had announced that it planned facelift for 17 lakes in and around the city. Cant find any newspaper articles to quote from, but this blog has it (17 lakes ...).

Uncontrolled growth - any remedies?

14 April 2008 - 1:09am — silkboard

Here is a tale of two buildings right next to each other.

Setback from the road, and use of basement for the first one:

Marathahalli railway bridge - finally!

7 April 2008 - 7:35pm — silkboard

Want corridors, not flyovers

5 April 2008 - 9:37am — silkboard

As Rithesh said here, Rammurthy Nagar under pass on ORR has moved jams to nearby signals. Jayadeva Circle flyover has made BTM 19th main signal and ORR/BG Road intersection area tougher to manage. Combination of Jayadeva circle and Dairy circle underpasses have made BG Road between the two points unmanageable. Flyover at silk board junction will soon stick out like a sore thumb once elevated Hosur Road is done, couple of more pillars and elevated road could have poured vehicles directly on ORR and Hosur Road.

The adventurous bus stands - K R Puram

3 April 2008 - 11:56pm — silkboard

There are a few of these special bus stands these days that exist right before a flyover or an underpass. Just as the road forks and grade separation begins, you find some crowd. Buses usually stops to block traffic heading towards the underpass or flyover. And pedestrians either have to run across flowing traffic, or wait in the middle of traffic to catch buses. Needless to say, you get a lot of 'almost' hit-and-run and screeching halt situations.

Ring Roads - whats up BMRDA?

1 April 2008 - 6:01pm — silkboard

Whats up with BMRDA? Their website has been dead for almost an year now, though that is not the best measure or indicator of their activity levels. Their plans for developing satellite towns around Bangalore have a real shot at solving our city's problems by de-congesting it. But there haven't been concrete updates recently.

Road over drains - the project is back

29 March 2008 - 8:26pm — silkboard

It was just over an year ago when BBMP talked about the project - about 250 km of roads over Bangalore's storm water drains. Local papers, when covering BBMP budget today, are saying that this project is now funded. Here is a quote from TOI:

Short term fix - Lease out HAL airport to BIAL?

24 March 2008 - 9:15am — silkboard

On the ever so hot HAL vs BIAL debate, I saw an interesting letter to editor column of TOI (Fri Mar 21) where author Narayan G sort of suggested this - Why not lease HAL airport to BIAL itself? That could be a short term fix till BBMP/state government improves connectivity. BIAL would get revenue from HAL as well as BIAL for sometime, hopefully that will give them enough revenues to keep them from going to courts over breach of contract. We would get better facilities at HAL airport. And since BIAL would want to gain efficiency of operations by consolidating all air traffic at BIA, they will keep pushing everyone on the connectivity issue and wouldn't want to hang on to HAL for ever.

Eating up the lake?

24 March 2008 - 12:28am — silkboard

Javascript is required to view this map.

Opportunity for public service fellowships

17 March 2008 - 8:15pm — silkboard

Here is a note on an opportunity from Indicorps, a non-profit organization that offers opportunities for aspiring young leaders of Indian-origin to engage in intense grassroots development projects through one or two-year public service fellowships. They are looking to get the word out about this opportunity to those who are interested in dedicating a year of their lives to India's development and to their own personal development as leaders of the Indian diaspora. More details ....

Cauvery junction underpass - maintenance?

15 March 2008 - 12:00pm — silkboard

Now that the underpass is ready, its time to maintain it. So BBMP is asking for private parties to undertake maintenance of Cauvery junction underpass on BOT basis (tender here). Private parties keeping the underpass clean and painted etc while they make money displaying advertisements, that is fine. But after reading the document, I was confused as to what is the "build" part of BOT (build, operate transfer) here. I thought the underpass was ready. BBMP has mentioned a penalty clause for delay in construction:

Bangalore's Water: 38% is not "accounted" for!

14 March 2008 - 12:48pm — silkboard

Some newspaper reports (Hindu, ToI) this week mentioned that:

"... water supply to Bangalore is ... 694 million litres a day ... consumption which is actually billed ... around 429 million litres a day. The unaccounted for water comes to an alarming 38.2 per cent"

Wow, 38.2 percent (quoted from Hindu)! This would include two types of losses, 1) distribution loss: damages, leakages etc, and 2) water that is not getting billed. There is no clear mention or estimates of split between the two categories. Assuming distribution loss (leaks) to be 20% (double the 10% developed world aims for, google "Water Management Act US"), 18% of water could be going unbilled. That guesswork tells us that 1 in 6 of us, Bangalore citizens, isn't paying for his/her water.

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