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Stake-less stake-holders

One significant drop out from the list of 'stake-holders', compared to the BATF days is Bangalore Telephones.

Why India’s Bus Rapid Transit Projects don’t excite me

The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) as it is currently planned in India is suggested as the one-size-fit-all solution to our transport woes. Having travelled on Mumbai’s bus service (BEST) for thirty years & London’s public transport since 2001, I can’t share the optimism of those who believe BRT (as it is currently planned) is the way forward. When senior citizens, children & disabled struggle to cross the roads safely, one would hope for a solution that improves all aspects of mobility. I wonder why a city like Pune would spend crores of rupees on BRT when 40% of its roads don’t have pavements (see state of Pune pavements here). That almost a third of Pune citizens commute by walking makes the question more poignant.


Abide - Participation, PR and Networking! (edited)

Oh yeah. Murali Sir and I were there. 10 am - 4 pm, a good 6 hours. Met so many people, and heard and saw so much, that I need some time to organize and share the details. Enjoy some pictures till then, will update this post with notes pretty soon.

Abide - all the right noises

#1. at yesterday's meet, the media reports that while the CM spoke on finances and the big picture, the heads of various departments spoke of issues at a much finer scale, and the members of various RWA's spoke about many nuts and bolts issues[1]. (Added later: After I have written all that I have written, I observed a curiously familiar position on sakrama, property taxes and egovernance by a name very familiar. I am 99.87% sure that our own Silkboard has found mention in that article. which means he was there. So he will defintely post his field notes. You can ignore this post.)

Shrine entrepreneurship

Jun08 033If any one can do anything about this menace, it is the BJP government.

Example of BMTC Local Shuttles for Bannerghatta Road

Hello All,

Here i am once again, i had promised long back to explore more on problems with BMTC in bannerghatta road. So here are some of the major problems.

BMTC busses currently ply only from the main bannerghatta road and it does not penetrate the interiors of bannerghatta road. Interiors on either side of bannerghatta road is pathetic with no proper asphalt. It seems to me that no one has taken interest in improving the conditions these roads. Most of the roads have been occupied by petty shops making the interior existing roads small.

Local shuttles and BMTC - Example Whitefield

Let me try a detailed example of how BMTC can extend the reach of its services, without adding tons of buses to its fleet. It involves investing in identified trunk routes, and then in planning local shuttles. Lets dig a bit deep into Whitefield.

Say we identify the trunk routes between Whitefield and rest of Bangalore as Southbound (towards Koramangala E-City, Westbound (towards CBD via Airport road), and Northbound (towards Banaswadi, Hennur). Call these trunk routes, and put a bus every 10-15 minutes on each. Here are the three routes (indicative, not exact):

Joys of public transport

Public transport is fun. Sometimes I think of our lives as bubbles. In the house with familiar people, in the office with known colleagues, and in the car or on the bike alone, we may not really be mingling-connecting with our city, isn't it? That philosophical take apart, here are some pictures and experiences after trying BMTC a lot (upto 4-5 times a day) over last month.

Hard work at BIAL results in significant improvement

On Friday, 20-June-2008, I took a flight out of BIAL airport. As my pictorial essay shows, the hard work, by the stake holders at BIAL, is showing results, in the form of significant improvements.

Getting to the airport

A Dangerous Trend

Since taking charge, CM Shri Yeddyurappa has spoken about his plans and ideas on a wide range of issues. But one thing he has been silent about is the issue of election to Bangalore's ULBs.

Fast rail track MG Road to BIAL - confused

I am honestly a little confused on this infrastructure project that has been "reannaounced" by the government.

From what I have read on this( news releases), what I gather is that:

  • There is a dedicated fast track railway being proposed from MG road to BIAL exclucively servcing airport needs .
  • That this project, PPP or not, is to the tune of 3000crores
  • That the ticket will be in the region of Rs200 per pop.

Drunk driver worried about his future!

3 innocent people lost their lives because of one drunken idiot on the East Coast Road in Madras. See the idiot's reaction. After robbing 3 people of their future his reaction was that he was "anxious about his future".

Public Transport and Local Language (BMTC)

I'm sorry but Mr Murali's post on Autos seems to have diverted way beyond scope. Hence we now have two parallel topics running in the same post. Let us bring one here.

How important is to have Multi lingual Bus Boards? Can we do with just addressing the needs of the "local" population? How do we create a universal transport system.

Privatisation of Lakes:

The 'Hasiru Usiru', along with a few other organisations, is organising a human chain to "Protect Our Lakes for Posterity" on Sunday, the 22nd June, at Agara lake, Koramangala.

Even with my not being against the Hebbal lake 'maintenance arrangement'(with the Oberoi's), I have signed their online petition, because I am dead against the Nagavara and Agara deals.

Praja update - Internship program, Infopedia section!

Time for an update about Praja.in. We have a lot of content now, and have been building a nice group of caring citizens here. To take things forward, there are two broad categories of work for us. 1) Enhance the website with more networking and information sharing tools. 2) Put in place a scalable model for converting member enthusiasm into action on the ground. We have two updates, important next steps for Praja.

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