silkboard's blog

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.

How hard is it to make a post like this? Examples abound. Here is another one from Marathahalli. A new tall building popped up earlier this year, and a Shanthi Sagar showed up, I am guessing as a tenant.

Of course, the parking has been planned for. Its in the basement. Spot the basement there, just to the left of stairs?

What was your experience like when you ran around to get your 3-4 year old admitted into pre-school or nursery? Leaving out those who could afford to pay and get into the 'top end' primary schools (money was the clear filter there), did the rest have good visibility into the criteria used to accept or reject their children? How many of you got real receipts for the entry/admission fee you paid? And if you hedged between 2-3 schools, and got admission into all, did you get your fees or deposits refunded in full?

[Since's Goerge's experience got lost in talks of PPP, privatization etc, I am posting this in a new thread]

Got to use BMTC's Whitefield to BIA service yesterday. Went to Hope Farm junction in an auto, and noticed that there was a special board marking the BIAL bus stop. I was there at 1:35 pm, and as per the listed times, a non-A/C service should have shown up in a few minutes. Even though a non-A/C bus was parked about half a km back in Whitefield, nothing showed up. Waiting for the bus wasn't fun - strong sun, no shelter, and no paved surface to rest my luggage.

So it did happen. Naveen, Murali sir, Vasanth, Praveen, myself got 30 minutes of Mr Tripathy's time in his office. After introducing Praja etc, we were planning to present our (rather, Naveen's) slides on single dedicated lane based BRTS idea. But Mr Tripathy said he was short on time, and would look at it later at leisure. However, he warned us that he just can't do BRTS by himself. He is only a bus operator, and owns only the rolling stock. We should go to other bodies (BBMP/BDA/Traffic police to get non-rolling stock infrastructure for BRTS) to push for it. He then updated us on the BRTS-on-ORR project a bit. He seemed well versed with BRTS, its need and advantages, Bogota etc. Though, his take on the key reason for the success of buses at Bogota is - the interesting ways in that city ran campaigns to educate citizens on road discipline.

It probably started in late March (28/3/08), when Supreme Court issued notices asking Karnataka government to respond as to why the SC order on BMIC is not implemented. The notice was returnable in six weeks. Fast forward that much time, and on May 7, we were told (TOI - typically pro NICE) that government has issued a go ahead on BMIC:

"... the government has paved the way for completion of the peripheral and link roads, which were stalled by the H D Kumaraswamy government. Besides, an empowered committee headed by chief secretary Sudhakar Rao has been asked to take all necessary steps for early completion of NICE's projects ..."

Spotted a news clip in Pune newspaper (ToI) this week that said - PCMC (Pimpri Chinchwad, a Pune suburb) is planning to make sanctioning of building plans an online process. So:

"At present, builders are required to submit the papers and the necessary documents pertaining to building plans to the PCMC. The civic body has now developed a software to scrutinise the papers once they are submitted on-line ... The software will help in checking all aspects of the building plans and confirm whether they comply with the building bylaws, TDR and FSI restrictions, etc."