[Pacifica]

As a newly-minted Puneite (moved here from NCR), my favourite traffic rants are:

1. Two wheelers without helmets.

2. Number plates with the last 3-4 digits in enormous font and the rest of it so tiny that it is unreadable.

3. No free left turn at most signals, but people keep honking behind while one waits for the left turn signal.

4. Dark sun film still found on many cars.

And my favorite - that idiotic Hinjewadi flyover at Wakad. Why on earth wasn't the flyover built on NH-4 to allow the highway traffic to flow smoothly? Instead the flyover carries local traffic across the highway. It causes all sorts of problems for everyone. The locals can't make right turns, there's actually a signal on the NH-4 now, and the whole thing is a complete pig's breakfast.

[mm403]

Is anyone aware of any planned VIP Traffic movement.Since last two days observing heavy bundobust from Golf club square all the way till University flyover. Today I counted around 200 policemen/women along this stretch i.e Golf Club-> Bombay Sappers-> War Cemetry -> Range Hills >Esquare > Univ

[mmxylorider]

What's with the diversion created after the Mula river bridge leading to octroi post? It was operational for a while and now it has been blocked and traffic is back on the true NH4.

If kept open, it will definitely assist in clearing the road if truckers take the turn into the octroi naka.

With LBT coming into play and octroi being thing of the past, that vast area should be used as a pay and park system with PMPML running ring route shuttles covering all HJW phases. It will solve HJW congestion, reduce fuel spend and yet give comfortable commute for better part of a daily drive.

[selfdrive]

Originally Posted by sajo

Ranting because read in the papers about an accident today.
Triple seat riding accident

Any guesses on why this lady fell right in front of the bus?
Carriage width on Nagar road is reduced due to BRTS work. However, vehicles are still driven at the same speeds as before. They are all just hurtling in a general direction at idiotic speeds.
Life was much simpler when my commute didnt have Nagar road in it.

Considering how the BRTS on Hadapsar road has fared, I am confused why this is being implemented on Nagar road. A monorail would be more useful.

Originally Posted by mmxylorider

The first thing that should be done is to prevent parking opposite Banjara hills and other small joints at the NDA road/Chandni Chowk intersection. Even after the demolition earlier, makeshift 'tapris' have cropped up.

This story is true throughout the city. Wherever the road passes through shanty town, parked vehicles and people standing about take up at least one lane of traffic. If the road is being widened, there should be one lane kept for such nonsense in this city.

Originally Posted by mmxylorider

The barricade preventing people coming from Univ circle on NDA road to continue onwards towards Paud is meaningless. One has to go down all the way to Paud road to get back to beyond the barricades. Of course, most bikers still go against the one way.

No, this works perfectly fine. I never go from University road to Paud road When I go from Kothrud to Bavdhan I climb the hill so I enter the intersection fast enough to deter any biker going the wrong way.

Originally Posted by mmxylorider

Have also observed, with widening of the Chandni Chowk-Paud Road connector, more vehicles are coming wrong way up to join Bangalore bound NH4. I say, widen even further, put up a divider and make it official! It will mean even less traffic on the overbridge.

I dont think this is the correct way to go about it. I dont usually go that way, but if I do I ensure that I am on the rightmost lane in the face of people coming up the wrong way.

Originally Posted by Pacifica

The locals can't make right turns, there's actually a signal on the NH-4 now, and the whole thing is a complete pig's breakfast.

How is that different from the excellently planned mess in the rest of the suburbs? For good measure there is always construction rubble lying around the roads. On whatever little road is left, there is some procession (birth, marriage, funeral, etc.) going on.

[sajo]

After 5 days of shopkeeper's strike , they finally opened up on Sunday for business.
I had to go to Lakshmi Road to buy..err...Lakshmi Road-ish thingies for the upcoming festival , and by God was it crowded!!
At 7 pm , it took me a full 30 mins to get from Shanipar to Mandai parking. And we were on a bike, mind you! I saw a bhpian's MH02 registered Silver Ikon following me too..
A long queue to buy household essentials after 5 days of strike is understandable, but a queue to buy Gold ? Punekars, I tell ya.. :P

Also, on the same day, saw an unfortunate incident. A large crowd had gathered, and a hefty guy was actually dragging a very respectably dressed and looking lady by her hand. Maybe this was a result of a road accident/incident. There was a huge crowd gathered, but nobody was doing anything. I was on the opposite side of the road, and I am ashamed to say , I glanced and then rode right on too. This was next to Krishna Hospital, at 6 pm or thereabouts, Sunday evening.

[S_U_N]

Does anyone know what happened to the LBT thing?
Life seems to be back to normal in Pune and traffic is normal too.
Are they still stopping trucks at Octroi nakas around Pune?

I asked a Fedex fellow who come for a pickup what happens if I buy an item from ebay from Delhi. Who pays LBT and where/ how?
He said: No idea.

[shabahmad]

Originally Posted by S_U_N

Does anyone know what happened to the LBT thing?
Life seems to be back to normal in Pune and traffic is normal too.
Are they still stopping trucks at Octroi nakas around Pune?

As per shop Owners of PCMC, They will go back on indefinite strike from 15 April.
They are open when business is high i.e. on weekends & festivals.

[moralfibre]

Finally, the small stretch of potholed road outside Khadki War Cemetry has been redone. Smooth surface that would last until end of monsoon like every year. For whatever it is worth, I save 5 minutes on my daily drive to work.

[mm403]

Originally Posted by moralfibre

Finally, the small stretch of potholed road outside Khadki War Cemetry has been redone. Smooth surface that would last until end of monsoon like every year. For whatever it is worth, I save 5 minutes on my daily drive to work.

+1 , Infact we all will save some more minutes when stretch in front of Bombay Sappers gets completed

[sajo]

A case of apparent road rage :
We (me and Mrs.Sajo) were standing outside a food joint on Paud Road when we suddenly noticed a lot of commotion. At ~8.30ish pm..
4 youths had got into an altercation with another one, and there were fists and blows. The 4 youths were driving a Swift Diesel (dark blue) with a large Devnagari number. They finally managed to overpower him and forced him into the car with them and sped away. The guy in the front passenger seat smiled and waved while driving away. What fate that youth will meet, is anybody's guess. Maybe will end up in a canal or a ditch somewhere. Somebody may have called the cops while this was happening , because a police van with a beacon arrived soon after. Passerbys and eyewitnesses crowded around the van (with only 2 policemen in it), but no idea what happened. The van then simply drove away (policemen didnt even get down). Maybe they had conveyed over wireless.
Anybody passing this road know anything about it ? The traffic was blocked for sometime while this was happening.

[ajay_satpute]

Originally Posted by sajo

A case of apparent road rage :
Anybody passing this road know anything about it ? The traffic was blocked for sometime while this was happening.

Gosh !

I think this all could be due to rivalry between the two local parties. Something similar happened to Nimhan's nephew in Sus area 2 weeks ago. If not, then its really scary.

[sajo]

But with the politico goons running amok drunk on power , what is that which stopping them from doing something to a motorist tomorrow ? (Assuming the person being beaten up not being an innocent 'victim')

[ninjatalli]

Thanks to @mikon for sharing this. This is an incident with an Infosys employee a few days back - the mail was shared on their (internal) forum by their security team.

“Incident between 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM day before yesterday.

I left the office around 7:15 and was taking the Mann – Nande – Susgaon route to reach the Bangalore highway on my way to home. Somewhere in Nande where there are a couple of speed breakers, a local man on a Bike stopped my way (he was coming from the opposite side and parked his bike in front of my car) and claimed that I was trying to run him down. He started to shout asking me to roll down the window and started to call people. I sensed trouble backed my car and continued further. He picked up stones and hurled at my car. Things did not end here as this guy started to chase me on his bike and had had me cornered about 500 m from the sus gaon market. Pretty soon he had called up a whole gang of goons and some local leader (as it seemed) in a Scorpio as things got heated up. It was a difficult situation as it was dark, I did not know the local language, I was with my wife and it was not clear what these people wanted. What we did was we refused to open the door or roll down the window and called up 100. The response from Police control room was flawless. They immediately connected me to a police patrol team who started for our location. I kept the phone on speaker with slight window open so that the people around can hear and told them that the police are on their way and I would not open the door till they are here. This calmed down the situation a bit but it seemed that they were not ready to believe that Police would come. Around 20 minutes post the call I got a call from the Police van mentioning that they have entered sus gaon and they asked me of my exact location. Now the situation suddenly changed and the goons asked me to go as they did not want to aggravate the argument and quickly started to disperse. We moved on our way and connected with the Police van near the highway. They were perfect gentlemen who inquired about the incident, asked us if we noted the number of the bike (which I hadn’t) and want to file a case and then let us leave.”

[ajay_satpute]

Just saw the Royal Challengers Banglore team bus flying on the Baner road. We could see Murali Karthik sitting on the front seat, just behind the driver of the Volvo bus.

Now the rant: Why on earth does this team bus need some 10 police vehicles in the front and back of it? The police vehicles were driven like how a two wheeler rider in Pune rides his Pulsar (no offense meant to Pulsar owners)

Then saw the IPL schedule and realized that they were travelling to the stadium to destroy the remaining hopes of Pune Warriors team.

[S_U_N]

Cross posting this here:
Expressway traffic coming towards Pune is blocked. 3-4 hours needed to clear up.
This is somewhere near Khandala.