Blogs

Today, I had this strange experience. I had been invited to this meeting convened by Mr A Ravindra, advisor to the CM on urban issues, at the instance of the Bangalore Environment Trust, on the matter of 'road-widening', at 3.30 PM at the Vikas Soudha (On what transpired at the meeting, I will post separately - nothing too earth-shaking, though).

I reached well ahead of time, parked my car in the paid parking lot in the Cubbon park, near the library, and walked upto the Vikas Soudha main-gate. But, to reach the main gate, I had to cross the busy Vidhan Veedhi. There was a convenient pedestrian crossing, with signal lights, though the zebra markings had mostly got obliterated. The signal was showing red as I reached it, and the law-abiding citizen that I like to be seen to be, I waited for it to turn green, even as many people were crossing all over, darting through the speeding traffic. After some patient waiting, it suddenly occurred to me that a whole new cycle had started, even as the pedestrian signal had remained red right through.

There have been discussions here on JUSCO getting the Mysore contract. 24x7 supply has been noted as a major change that this contract will achieve. Now, JUSCO has been managing the water supply in Jamshedpur. Jamshedpur is also known as just "Tata", which is not surprising since the city was founded around the Tata Iron and Steel Works factory there.

One of the core infrastructural issues we are facing is an inability of our arterial roads and highways to provide rapid cross-town access. Globally, city and highway planners recognize and create different infrastructure for highways and city roads. See Dr. Joglekar’s posts here for a succinct description of this problem plaguing most Indian cities. A simple schematic (full size image here)and an inventory of city highways reveals the problem.

Thru Highways:

1. NH7 (in blue)
2. NH4 (in red)

Terminal Highways:

Just read this blog entry  on "Indian Liberals and Colour Pictures" by Amit Verma . Among other things, he talks about how colour pictures were used to transform chennai roads.

Excerpt : (Emphasis mine)

Cherubal works as a coordinator at Chennai City Connect, and holds the view that politicians and bureaucrats, sometimes caricatured as the villains in the piece by dogmatic liberals, are often on our side, and agree with us about the nature of the problems. But giving them abstract ideas about what to do is pointless, for they don’t have the bandwidth to take them further. The only effective approach is two-pronged: One, show them case studies to demonstrate that our solutions have worked elegantly elsewhere; Two, give them a detailed road-map of how to implement the solution.

Shri. S.K.Nataraj, Worshipful Mayor , No. 144, 12th Cross,3rd Main, Sarakki Grama, Bangalore-560078 Mobile : 9845013157

SWR is planning to introduce the double decker Train between Bangalore to Mysore once the coaches are made available from Rail Coach Factory (RCF) in Kapurthala to increase the passenger capacity.

Air-conditioned double-decker coach are running on trials on the Delhi-Moradabad section a few months ago

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/bengaluru/double-seats-twice-fun-735

This should help passenger travelling between Mysore to Bangalore and catching flight at  BIAL, by extending these trains upto  BIAL. Trumpet Loop / Terminal of BIAL building.

Praja.in members travelled by train and proved that the trains can be cheaper and faster also. Sop why not we consider the existing options and link with BMTC buses to the IT sector areas in the city? Just a list of them: * The stations which are very well connected with BMTC buses are Krishnarajapuram,Carmelram and whitefield stations. The are closer to the IT sectors also.

1. Krishnarajapuram Junction: It has the bus stop attached to it on the outer ring road side. almost all trains bound south stop at this station. BMTC buses connect well to:

a) ITPL: 304,306,319,600 series buses

b)Mahadevapura: 500A,500C,500D,500N,500L,501,501B,502A,C-1,BIAS-8,BIAS-8A

c)Bellandur: Same as Mahadevapira except 502A

Trains from Bangalore city:

Lalbagh Express at 6:30AM Marikuppam passenger at 7AM Chennai Express at 8AM Chennai Passenger at 9:20 Bangarpet passenger at 10 Good parking facility available at city station/cantt station.