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Emotional intelligence, Chanakya Niti and Road Safey - Webinar

What has Chanakya Niti to do with Road Safety? Last week I had the pleasure of doing a webinar on emotional intelligence, Chanakya Niti and road safety for over 200 staff from the RTO and allied professions. 

Capitalism Socialism etc - unload here

[Forked off from BMTC thread.

Saying goodbye to subways

In the past I had shared images of useless pedestrian subways near Hammersmith. Instead the pedestrian refuges were so effective and popular that the subways became disused. Work is still on going, but notice how the ugly space occupying lesions have been surgically removed to make way for a more likeable streetscape.
 

Highways and Ribbon Development

[Moved out of the Karnataka Roads PPP post] Without legislation that stops ribbon development, every new highway and bypass road (meant to by pass the townships) will be engulfed with surrounding development.

Even Mumbai-Pune expressway has not been spared from the above and towards the Pune end, we have numerous junctions sprouting and malls along highway which have driveways opening straight on to the highway!! Wakad in Pune has a Shoppers Stop and several more Corporates on the highway.

If you look at Western stats - country roads are most dangerous and Freeways / Motorways are most safe - because they are free of cycles, pedestrians and junctions. But in India, a highway can have have everything on it - from pedestrians, bullock carts, cycles, rickshaws and multitude of junctions - lots of elements trying to go across and perpendicualr to faster vehicles on the main carriage way. All this = 80% fatalities on Highway as reported above.

Sustainability - Making cities to be of one-hour wide functionality

Speech by Mr. Peter Newman is a must read for all City Adminisrators and Town planners. Please do spend time reading. Its dense but insightful.

http://www.metrostrategy.nsw.gov.au/dev/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=59&languageId=1&contentId=248

IRC Road markings & signs

I am not doing a summary here of the IRC codes for road markings. I ordered a copy and got it yesterday and flipped through it. The norms / guidelines cover the basics well. Significantly, there is clear guideline on GIVE WAY - markings.

Implementing bus priority on narrow roads - proposal submitted to Pune Municipal Corporation

Please find a significantly more detailed as well as an updated proposal for implementing bus priority on SB Road, Pune a 80 feet wide road not conducive to Bogota style BRTS with median lanes and median bus stops.
 

Urban development, costs of Metro and Indian budget - a perspective

In my arguments with regards BRTS, I often bring up the key but neglected and forgotten matter of cost-effectiveness of a given solution to our transportation problems. It should come as no surprise to most who are acquainted with my stance that I hate the idea of spending money without a clear crsip rationale and long term plan.  And the Metro falls under this category as far as I am concerned.

MMRDA officials have in the past replied in agreement to my suggestion that Mumbai Metro will not solve its problems at all. Given the fact that 10000 daily migrants to Mumbai will swell it to a city 30 million plus by 2030, it will be fair to say that whether Mumbai gets sea links or Metro rail, people will still be travelling in quasi or near stampede like situations and roads will always remain clogged.

IRC guidelines on pedestrian facilities - summary

I will split this in to following parts -

  1. Summary of IRC on above topic
  2. What is missing
  3. What we should do to fill in gaps
  4. Action the above by getting local civic body to ratify document Praja creates after step 3
  5. Forward plan

Summary:

Freeways are Freeways and City Roads are City Roads

Freeways are Freeways and City Roads are City Roads, there is no confusion about that.

By definition a Freeway is - FREE - of pedestrians / cyclists and T or cross junctions. Our planners have never either understood this or did not care or had ulterior motives.

Learning from Road Layouts

Dear All,

I have for some time wanted to share how planning road layouts is vital for ensuring traffic flows smoothly.

Here is the first in what I hope to make a series (and hope other contribute too) of road layouts from UK. Aim is to share these observations with our planners to reduce entropy on our roads.

A Typical cross junction in UK

Banning Right Turns to Improve Traffic Flows

In Pune, currently we have a phase where the DCP is keen on removing / banning right turns to improve flow of traffic.

Comprehensive Mobility Plan for Pune - Proposed by IL&FS

Pune corporation recently got the Il&FS to produce a comprehensive mobility plan for the city. Not surprisingly the plan suggests a need for mega projects from Metro, BRT, Flyovers, Subways, Viaducts, Elevated roads, Bridges, Road over river - a bhelpuri of a kind.

Public Transport - Bus service algorithm / checklist

My views on BRT have been known for a while on Praja.

I am not anti or pro any model. I believe a place has a thing and a thing has a place. First we must be able to justify BRTS on basis of need, then it should be implementable on given corridor (just being able to implement without demonstrated need is no good).

Here is an algorithm which I would use -

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