Traffic!

[satish_appasani]

I am mostly avoiding car to work. I am using office bus. This is turning up very effective for me. Anyway, there is no more excitement in driving with current state of roads.

As somebody said, ban manufacture of new autos or restrict the number.

Drive sense in to people's brains. Heavy fines for even a tiny mistake.

Make it strict to use roads only for travelling, nothing else. Stop the political parties for using roads as free stages.

[ramkya1]

Hai PPL,

Something I read recently in the press.............

If you have noticed traffic snarls, its around school areas and during the time when schools open and let off children. Vehicles discharging / loading children chock up these areas the the snarls have a domino effect. It would be ideal if there are sealed areas for school children to pedal their way to school; this will have positive long term health benefits to the children, will be less poluting and deconjest the roads. The same article said they are trying to make cycle corridors where schools are clustered around....
will look see and let you know shortly which paper.

As for reducing long distance commuters....... like in Indonesia many offices encourage employees to share cars.

Another wild one would be to allow vehicles with even registration numbers to ply for 3/4 days and the balance days for vehicles with odd numbers.

--Ramky

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[parijnan]

Originally Posted by Gordon

Of course it is practical. Two years back, no one thought making seatbelts complusory is practical.

Sidewalks are being developed. I've seen many places where sidewalks have been made. Roads are being made wider. People must be made to walk on sidewalks. Walking on the road and/or crossing roads where there is no crossing, is also known as "jaywalking" and is illegal. There is a fine for it in most countries. It is practical if we work towards it. And if I'm not wrong, I think and hope the authorities are already doing something about it.

People should be fined for walking on the road when there is a perfectly good sidewalk. But then who decides what is a good sidewalk. A cop out to make money can harass the pedestrian even for walking on a road with no sidewalk or a broken sidewalk. "Damned if you do. Damned if you don't". Just my 2 cents.

[amit]

Even in a city of LA with it 10 lane freeways has the worst traffic snarls you've ever seen.

Agreed. Even agree that finding parking in western countires is difficult and bloody expensive. Even in Toronto there are traffic jams during rush hour everyday BUT it's the driving etiqutte that makes the worst of trafffic jams look like a normal small one. Countless times I have been stuck in one of these bad jams and sometimes when the road curves up or down you can clearly see the kilometeres of cars lined up but unlike India no-one honks, no-one darts and cuts across lanes like maniac's, most people stick to their lanes and the final result is that the jam actually moves along at a pretty decent 30kmph and everyone reaches home saner and faster. Yes, people sometimes have to change lanes in traffic jams and the car in the next lane actually stops to let the lane changer in and no, that does not result in 5 more cars jumping in blocking everyone else because they saw a window of oppurtunity to squeeze into this "secret lane with fast moving traffic". Once there was a accident in the right lane and it was closed resulting in traffic in that lane having to move into the left lane. People alternated between each other resulting in smooth flow. A car in the left lane stops letting one in the right lane move in, then the stopped car moves, the next car in line in left lane stops letting the next car in right lane to move in and then the already stopped car drives off. Alternating like that on their own without dirctions from the cops resulted in a very smooth transition between lanes. How many decades do you think it will take for Indians to reach that level of maturity?

Also, I don't believe that having entry tax into heavy traffic downtown areas like in London or having odd and even number cars plying on certain days is the solution till all other infrastrucuture problems are solved. The government can't wash their hands of their responsiblity so easily. In western countries, government is able to toy with these ideas because the traffic is too heavy despite the world class roads. Let the Indian government first give smooth 10 lane expressways cutting through our metro cities, let them first remove the illegal shops lining our city roads, widen these roads, make more parking spaces, ensure traffic discipline etc etc and then if the roads are still blocked, the citizens will happily discuss radical ideas to ease congestion.

Everytime I get stuck in a jam here, I always look at how everyone leaves the leftmost lane that by law is only for emergency stops empty. I always think, if this was India, people would have converted that emergency stop lane into a regular lane creating more chaos. Result, you get more irritated and frustrated, the jam gets worse , you reach home later then normal, angrier then normal and take your frustration out on your wife and kids.

[MrBoombastic]

Nobody really cares... We all talk about change, but none of us change ourselves and/ or help in making that change by getting up and doing something about it. The problem is not India, it's we Indians and our mindsets. Let's all hope there is light at the end of the tunnel for us is all I can say.

[Mpower]

Originally Posted by sbasak

Nowadays AC3T coaches become full before Sleeper class! Unlike USA, trains will always be main mode of long distance transport in India. Irrespective of the person is car owner or not, for intercity travels (>500 km) in India, people always prefer train/plane over car!

Your're right. But, I meant the suburban train system. Even if they make it half as clean as the London Tubes, many car-owners might make the switch. But we need two separate
classes/bogeys because the rich guys are not going to travel in crowded janta class and the janta class wont want to pay triple fare no matter how modern or clean it is

[msprabhakar]

Originally Posted by amit

... Why can't these memsaheb's, majority of whom are housewives learn driving?...

Hey Amit, This thread is asking for suggestions to improve traffic conditions... not for creating chaos!

[msprabhakar]

Traffic, like every other problem, has to be managed. And managing requires professional planning and execution.

Every city is unique in layout and unique in its denizens' needs to commute. Several years back, I saw in one of IIT's TechFests a brilliant integrated plan to tackle Mumbai's traffic woes for ever. This is too complex a plan to even attempt to describe here, but it considered an unbelievable range of causes and suggested design solutions for every one of them! I am one of the greatest admirers of Singapore's traffic management system, but believe me, these students from IIT, if they had their way, would have made Mumbai a dream city as far as traffic management goes. It had plans for hawkers, cyclists, buses, pedestrians... a plan for distributing work clusters, flexi-time, mathamatical models for signal synchronization, alternate vending systems and channels for hawkers, MRTs, ... What a pity our Government has not even taken a look at it! The cost of implementing such a system could have been recovered through a one time new vehicle cess in less than a decade!

Several years back, I also saw another model for traffic management for Chennai presented by a brilliant brain called RVR Prasad at College of Engineering, Guindy (If anybody has ever heard of this person, please PM me about his whereabouts... he's a reincarnation of Einstein!)

[veyron1]

IMHO, the most probable solution; car pooling, combined with restricted use of the roads, thus- all cars should only get to use the roads on alternate days, i.e, cars with regn no:s 1-5000 should use it on one day, and the rest 5000, the next; this alone would halve the traffic daily; and as time progresses and the number of cars increases, the permission to access the roads can be decreased as per requirement (regn no.s 1-3000 on monday, 3001-6000 on tuesday, etc....) .

[jat]

Around 10 or 15 years back, I was in Calcutta. The CPM govt. gave a call to all public to follow traffic rules. They started a token booking where the the fellow who break rules will be give a token ticket, but he did not have to pay any fine. (This was done to impress the investors etc). For a week the guys followed rules. And the trvelling time in taxi was cut down to half of the previous time!!! After a week, the traffic was back to normal and chaos prevailed, the travelling time and taxi fares doubled up.

Similarly in Agra, the cop had is arm strectched out to stop the traffic in one direction and a guy on mobike just lowered his head passed right under the cop's arm!!? And driving in Agra again is a nightmare.

Even Chandigarh drivers are showing improvements by copying those driving habits and skills and thus slowing traffics :-(

[highpriest]

Originally Posted by veyron1

IMHO, the most probable solution; car pooling, combined with restricted use of the roads, thus- all cars should only get to use the roads on alternate days, i.e, cars with regn no:s 1-5000 should use it on one day, and the rest 5000, the next; this alone would halve the traffic daily; and as time progresses and the number of cars increases, the permission to access the roads can be decreased as per requirement (regn no.s 1-3000 on monday, 3001-6000 on tuesday, etc....) .

Nothing that most people will casually resolve with a 50 buck bribe! Agree totally with amit: It's the attitude and mindset of our people that needs a complete overhaul. I spent one hour traveling from Andheri East to 4 bungalows earlier this evening [about 4 or 5 KMs]. The problem definitely was *not* cars. Less than 1 in 10 vehicles were cars all along the way. Rickshaws and people on the road were the worst offenders. BEST bus drivers casually overshot signals despite traffic cops being present. Add beggars and eunuchs to the mix and you have a perfect recipe for traffic nightmare.

Why do rickshaw drivers drive the way they do? Why do people think that a hand gesture is enough to stop an entire congested road so they can cross? And what's with the digging? Our existing road infrastructure cannot handle this volume of traffic. Drastic measures need to be adopted to correct this situation. Steeper fines. Better trained [and better paid] traffic cops. Make it clear to the rickshaw and BEST drivers that they are a part of traffic and traffic rules *do* apply to them.

- Harish

[msprabhakar]

Originally Posted by highpriest

...It's the attitude and mindset of our people that needs a complete overhaul...

Agree... and also the sheer necessities of daily life.

And how do you "overhaul"? (a) by wishing? (b) by cursing (c) through self-discipline alone? In Singapore, you can't see any policemen on streets. Every street and every other public place is covered by CCTV and recorded by policemen watching consoles inside a building. When denizens realise that they can't argue against camera evidence, "attitude" and "mindset" get naturally "overhauled"!

[normally_crazy]

Originally Posted by ramkya1

Another wild one would be to allow vehicles with even registration numbers to ply for 3/4 days and the balance days for vehicles with odd numbers.

Infact this was suggested for decongesting South Mumbai - Cars witheven and odd numbers ending ply on alternate days in the city !

a few suggestions from me -

1) get the autos off the eastern and western express highways and main roads like mumbai-pune roads etc.

2) get all empty stationary taxis and autos off the road. have a centralised area / yard for taxis and autos .....and we can call them on hotlines .

3) improve the quality , comfort of the BEST buses - have dedicated lines for them to run resulting in increased frequencies so that people use public transport.

4) dont allow trucks in the city - only tempos and 3 wheeler autos to ferry goods.

5) get tough with the hawkers and reclaim footpaths for people to walk on - reducing the number of jaywalkers on the roads.

6) train 2 wheeler riders to drive normally - not like Rossi every single time they kick start the bike.

thinking of more -------

[adit1329]

• BEST: They should be monitored and have warning systems. After sufficient warnings, they must take strict and legal action against them. Anyone caught violating traffic rules or any other rule, should be dealt with strictly. At every stop or maybe depots you can have some sort of complaint box where there are forms available. Fill in the form that will ask the registration number of the bus, time, and the route number along with the complaint against the bus.

Bangalore BMTC bus drivers have a system where thay can run over 7 people and then they loose their job...
Now bangalore has decide to let loose Volvo buses on 3 major routes and all 3 routes are extremely traffice laced....

[pankaj09]

With the number of bikes increasing on the road daily I wonder what will happen in 2 to 3 years.

If you look on the roads you will see nothing but bikes parked along the roads, at traffic signals these bikers are at the front blocking the open traffic.

It may be any road you will always find bikers cutting lanes or not giving turning indications and at night time most of them even had their head and tail lamps switched off.

i am not against bikes just the way people ride them.

Pankaj