silkboard's blog

Bangalore's elevated roads

10 December 2007 - 10:19am — silkboard

Dont just think the elevated expressway from Silk Board junction to Electronics City. Our city is planning for a few more elevated roads to speeden up movements in and out of the city:

1) Sirsi circle flyover to Outer Ring Road (Kengeri) - 6 km elevated. BBMP got started with this one last week by calling for RFPs (read here on BBMP website, mentions 4 lane elevated corridor).

2) Silk Board junction to Shoolay Circle. BBMP should soon be floating an RFP on this one too. Its a pretty long one, 10.5 kms going by the CTTP (here).

3) Yeshwantpur and Outer Ring Road junction - 5 km elevated. Things seem to be moving on the Nelamangala tollway project (we discussed recently). But it is not clear to me if the 5 km elevated stretch at Yeshwantpur is part of the tollway project.

Bangalore Mangalore train - Lalu's admission?

9 December 2007 - 5:54pm — silkboard

First off, thanks Vasanth for the informative update on the long awaited train. Hopefully they will complete the Bangalore Hassan line soon, the zig zag route via Mysore (go south) and Hassan (come back north) takes a bit too much time (12 hours).

BTW, I read a news-piece on this train in ToI this morning, and something in there just amazed me. The piece talks about Mr Lalu Yadav flagging the Bangalore train off at Mangalore, and how he kept the audience in splits during his speech. Now, for the interesting part:

"When Lalu mentioned that he knew the reasons behind the delay and put the onus on the bus and truck lobby, there was a loud roar of approval"

Bengalooru - Nelamangala Tollway on NH4

7 December 2007 - 9:51am — silkboard

Saw two interesting bits in papers about this project. About a week ago, newspapers carried a list of land properties along NH4/Tumkur road that could be acquired for the project. And today, one newspaper has an ad insert that says - "Navayuga Engineering Co. Ltd.

Sakrama - setting things right?

4 December 2007 - 12:02am — silkboard

Saturday afternoon, I spotted this notice in front of a commercial building in Banashankari. One look at the building, and I could guess what it could be. The building has a basement - must have been approved for parking usage - that houses retail stores. [PS: obfuscated the address etc from photo]

After looking at this BBMP notice, this is what I was thinking. How many commercial buildings of this size (not too large, not too small) would have violations? From what I see, perhaps a good 30-40%. If you include the newly added peripheral areas (the new B in BBMP), I bet the percentage would be higher.

BIAL connectivity updates Novenmber 2007

29 November 2007 - 7:11pm — silkboard

Newspapers have been reporting a lot of action on BIAL connectivity front. Some tidbits:

“The design of the trumpet interchange has been finalised in coordination with the NHAI to accommodate the expansion to eight lanes. The interchange work will not be delayed. Most of it will be ready for the airport opening date of March 30 and completed by July 2008,’’ said Albert Brunner, CEO, Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL).

The infrastructure task force (basically a body of concerned industrailists of the city) is supposed to have met today (Thursday), we should have more updates in newspapers tomorrow. But it seems:

In the long term, the task force is thinking of an express train service, a Peripheral Ring Road and an Express Highway Ring Road, sources said.

Last week, Livemint reported that:

Cities and self rule

27 November 2007 - 7:45am — silkboard

Mayor of London, Mr Ken Livingstone, made headlines when he visited Mumbai and Delhi recently. Amongst the things he said, here is one that I thought stood out.

"London mayor Ken Livingstone said on Wednesday that ... when it comes to the development of a city like Mumbai, he said he was not sure if his counterpart here can do much to change people’s lives with limited executive powers."

Thats a quote from TOI Mumbai Nov 22 2007. Truth hurts, but Mr Livingstone was almost right when he said that:

"... unfortunately the mayor of Mumbai did not have any power regarding important matters affecting the city. Almost all the powers are with the state government."

Airlines, staff want existing airports to stay

20 November 2007 - 7:23am — silkboard

As per this story in Business-Standard:

"... lobbying to prevent closure of the existing facilities — at the Airport Authority of India’s Begumpet airport in Hyderabad and HAL airport in Bangalore — has got louder"

Following sarkaari projects

18 November 2007 - 10:20pm — silkboard

How would you like the ability to watch and follow all work that our local governments do? All concerned citizens want it. A lot of work needs to happen though to make such a thing possible. Fancy websites for bodies like BBMP and BMRC are only the face, there need to be internal government systems to store and expose the information about their workings. And then you need easy to use tools that sarkaari babus and engineers would use to enter information into these systems.

Forget the technicalities for a moment. What we want is this. Tender gets floated for a work, we see it. We should then see all the bids, and the winner. And then on, the status and progress of work. Last, after the work gets completed, the details of how it was signed off as completed or successful.

BG Road Hosur Road shortcut and BBMP's road work

12 November 2007 - 9:28pm — silkboard

A good shortcut from Banerghatta road to Hosur road might be possible sometime soon. I dont really know the location of all the villages and layouts mentioned, but looks like BBMP is upgrading and asphalting a lot of roads in the Bommanahalli/Begur, Arekere area. Sample some:

- Improvements and Asphalting to road from Begur road to Hosur main road via Hongasandra Garvebavipalya (1st Main Road) - 30 lakhs.

- Improvements and Asphalting the Devarachikkanahalli main road (Begur road connecting Vijayabank layout) - 30 lakhs.

Metro @ Jayanagar - how exactly will it look?

12 November 2007 - 2:39pm — silkboard

Any ideas on how exactly will Metro look at this beautiful Jayanagar road? What is the precise location and design of upcoming terminal on Nanda Talkies road?

BIAL connectivity - ORR as tolled or access controlled road?

8 November 2007 - 7:53am — silkboard

If you look at it, the delayed and much hyped BIAL expressway would anyway not solve the connectivity issue. The problem would be in getting to the point in ORR from where BEL Road/NH7 or this expressway would emerge. What you need is quick way for folks to get out from the center or east/south/western corners of the city.

Stackable cars for central district?

6 November 2007 - 9:38am — silkboard

How about something like this for congested central areas of cities like Bangalore? This kind of fits in with Vikash's idea, its just another EV in his last mile transportation solution. Imagine getting down at a Bus/Metro hub in or near CBD. And then renting a car like this to go around. You can get to any congested corner, no matter how narrow the roads are. And these wont require parking lots for storage, stacking lots would be more like it.

Airport for sale at Puttaparthi - interesting?

4 November 2007 - 5:08pm — silkboard

In case you guys missed reading this story (Business-Standard 31st Oct), Sai Baba's airport which is only 70 km from Devanahalli is up for sale. What if a big name corporation buys and develops this airport and the sorrounding region? Bad news for BIAL?

No sting operation this

26 October 2007 - 11:27pm — silkboard

I swear, I was not trying a sting operation here. Though I do wish our electronic media tried sting operations at these day-to-day levels as well, but they are on to bigger things :)

Coastal Karnataka and Tourism

24 October 2007 - 9:34am — silkboard

[photo credits - Dr Vivek M @ flickr]

I have done the "Bangalore - Hassan - Mangalore - Udupi - Kundapur - Bhatkal - Murudeshwar - Jog Falls - Sagar and back" round trip a couple of times in past, and will have some images of Hilly and Coastal Karnataka etched in my mind forever.

So I thought of visiting the region again for the end of December vacations. Called up a few travel agents, checked a few travel websites to look for places to stay. Asked around friends to check if its practical to do a pure road-trip and explore the coast for a week.

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