1.0 Introduction
A normal concept of road design includes the following -- (1)
- Alignment Design
- Road Design (civil)
- Quantities and Reports
- Google earth Integration
- Earth works Design
There are companies providing automated software specialized in road networks of city and countrywide road networks like (1) above. However a Metropolitan city like Bangalore road network is much more complex as it has to provide for not only movement of goods, people and live stock, but also provide many life support and other road centric functions for its residents.
A city has to support people with their essential daily needs like water, sanitation, power, entertainment and communication networks apart from commuting and Transport needs. In short a city houses multifarious communities be it individual families, bunch of families and big communities themselves, along with their offices /work /worship and education spaces.
Summarizing, a cities road network has to provide space for
1. not only Goods and people Traffic but also for network of
2. Drinking Water distribution
3. Sanitation
4. Storm Water Management
5. Communication cable
6. Power cable Etc
It is proposed to introduce the concept of integrating the two diverse aspects of road meeting
- The transport needs of a city and
- Its Life support system.
I have been advocating that Architects who specialize in providing proper spaces for people to live in are the ones who need to be doing the same for a metropolitan city like Bangalore as a whole.
Mr. Suhas has provided the concepts for roads exclusively for Transport and commute. The concepts articulated here could fill in the spots provided in the proposed road manual authored by Mr. Suhas, if accepted.
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2.0 The current scenario
2.1 Laying Power Cables (Pits Method)
The city of Bangalore has 3 phase power distributed by under ground cable network of shielded black round cable about 4” in diameter. Each house hold with requirements of power about 3kvh is supplied by overhead bare aluminum cable network. This becomes un economical when the power requirement is much more for apartments and big business/office commercial blocks. Here is the problem no 1. due to un-organized/un-planed land use. The Land use from residential to Commercial is a common phenomenon in the current pace of development in the metro.
Here we try to explain the present steps of providing power to commercial buildings.
Picture-1 The Commercial Building at North South Double (Main) road requiring the power.
Picture-2 The BESCOM Transformer on East West Cross road where the HT Cable location is available. The distance between 1 and 2 is about 200 meters. Hence a trench is to be dug spanning the two locations. This trench is dug on the tar road for convenience.
The current procedure is that the owner has to and get the job done through a trench digging contractor bearing the cost. The salient point here is
1. The property owner has to get the sanction
2. Get the job done by a trench digger.
3. Lay the power cables
4. Get the power serviced
5. and pay the enhanced property tax at high commercial rates.
The interesting point however is the bribes to be paid daily to several agencies including
Picture-3 The power cable lying for insertion to the channel being drilled between the pits.
Picture-4 The digging of pits.
Picture-5 The Rubber air hose with drilling mole for putting the hole between the pits about 30 mtrs max long. The size of which can be compared with the actual cable to be pulled into place by the hose itself.
Picture-6 The power cable being laid into the road.