silkboard's blog

Hosur Elevated Road - after completion

5 November 2008 - 7:52pm — silkboard

If you want to imagine how the elevated highway is going to look post completion, start with few month old pictures from foto sun @ flickr (see below). The one on right is my favorite though.

Can someone organize a meet with BWSSB

4 November 2008 - 12:03am — silkboard

Plenty of transportation going on around here. One Bangalore public body that needs more attention on Praja is BWSSB. Of special interest to us should be their ambitious "Cauvery Water Supply Scheme Stage IV Phase - II to bring in 500 MLD Potable Water". I picked the title up from BWSSB's current projects page. Newspapers carry very little updates (I mean conslidated updates) on this project which is worth Rs 3383 crores. Receipt of bids was due on 26 September, wonder what happened.

Notes from BMRC meeting

31 October 2008 - 9:26pm — silkboard

Putting up a placeholder post for logs from the BMRC meeting today. 8 of us were present, so we should expect at least that many notes here.

BMTC - good things announced

28 October 2008 - 5:19pm — silkboard

While we continue to expect more from BMTC here on Praja, good things are being announced by the government. CM kicked off work for a TTMC at Kengeri, and while doing that, he announced (quoting TOI) a bus station in every locality and a depot every 5 km, in the next few years. Thats sweet, but sheltered bus stands with clear display of bus information would be sweeter.

Single body for all transportation works - Pune does it

24 October 2008 - 10:00am — silkboard

Learning from mistakes and gaps at other cities - Pune could be doing that. Read this morning, with great interest that Pune has created a special purpose vehicle called Pune Infrastructure Development Corporation (PIDC). Quoting this story (PIDC cleared), this body will be:

Pune Metro - lets start tracking it here

24 October 2008 - 9:22am — silkboard

A detailed project report for Pune Metro should be due out anytime now. Newspaper reports back in Aug had said the DPR should be out in a month. Not sure if it is out yet. Back on early 2007, Delhi Metro had floated several tenders for detailed project report (DPR) of Pune Metro.

Dreaming Challaghatta Bagh - big new lung space for Bangalore

23 October 2008 - 10:00am — silkboard

You may remember reading this last year - Army to close Agara Farm. Each time I am on Inner Ring Road or Sarjapur Road around Agara, I wonder what use is Army putting this vast stretch of Land into. Thanks a million to them, we don't have another middle class slum developing and congesting this area. But if they don't have any serious use planned right now, would they be game to lease it out to us (the citizens) to help create a nice big park cum eco preservation area!? Challaghatta Bagh anyone!?

Outer Ring Road project - work first, tender later?

21 October 2008 - 2:09am — silkboard

It was a bit puzzling to spot this tender from BDA in newspapers last week. Dated Oct 15, it called for "Improvements to Service Road of Outer Ring Road from Marathalli underpass to Central Silk Board junction (missing bits)". At least on the tenderwizard site (click for all recent BDA tenders), there is no other older tender calling for improvements to these service roads. The puzzling part however is this. Service Road improvement work is already in full swing! In fact, I have been noticing digging work for over a month now.

Water water everywhere

21 October 2008 - 1:42am — silkboard

Did you too notice a spate of water supply related news and announcements recently? Perhaps some influential individual or minister has water on his mind. Have a look:

So, will BMTC do one of this?

12 October 2008 - 11:19pm — silkboard

I was waiting for one of these two to happen. What if:

BMTC bids to operate buses in liberalized UP transport sector?
BMRC (Bangalore Metro) orders its own fleet of buses to make sure it gets good numbers to reliably reach all their stations?

BTRAC - New TMC, 20000 road signs

8 October 2008 - 9:04am — silkboard

As the newspapers reported, work began on a brand new Traffic Management Center for Bangalore on October 6. Its being designed by the same guys who have build Network Operation Centers and Data cnters for IT companies, the facility is going to be similar to those - lots of screens on one big wall and seatings or cubicles besides it for policemen to watch and control cemeras and signals:

New underpasses/flyovers on ORR - a suggestion

6 October 2008 - 10:47am — silkboard

You may have noticed that Outer Ring Road upgrade work is picking up serious momentum. Work on service lanes is in full swing, and it seems like survey work is on for the new underpass/flyovers as well. So if all goes well, we should have a nice six lane "corridor" from Hebbal to silk board junction. Good show indeed! At the same time, it'll be good to look ahead at the impact of this ORR upgrade project.

BMTC Study Reports

4 October 2008 - 1:19am — silkboard

Some email lists have suddenly discovered BMTC study reports. We have talked about these last month in comments here and there, thought I'd post a link again. See them here.

Tenders for 10 metro stations - details

29 September 2008 - 6:47pm — silkboard

First of all, I have no idea what that Deccan Chronicle article meant when it talked numbers like Rs 1 to 10 Crore per station. We have been noticing Bangalore Metro tenders in newspapers, all are available on BMRC website as well. Here are the details, with links to the tender pdf files:

CMH Road + Byppanhalli stations - Rs 81 Crores (link)
RV Road Terminal + Jayanagar - Rs 61 Crores (link)
Tollgate + Hosahalli + Vijayanagar - Rs 98 Crores (link)
Yeswantpur + Soap Factory + Mahalaxmi Nagar - Rs 111 Crores (link)

Some answers from Railways

28 September 2008 - 9:51pm — silkboard

Mr. N. Mukund who represents the Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce on the Divisional Railway Users’ Consultative Committee, recently got some questions answered by the Railway Officials. Click on the image on right to see Railway's replies to his questions. Here is a quick recap of some of those, see the one on commuter rail (suburban connectivity comes under ... state government!)

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