[Sawyer]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Also, sorry to nitpick but i found the below statement a bit unreal :

There are enough broken down and narrow roads in every city that no one will buy a bigger car just because some road has been widened.

I did this till last year because of the generally wider roads and parking places that now exist, so as far as I am concerned, it is as real as it can get. I finally came to my senses this year and bought a Spark to use in the city.

[entropy]

I think more than road-widening it is the education/discipline and basic traffic common-sense that needs to be given to our society. Look at Tokyo. Not very wide roads in the city and yet they can reasonably well handle several times more the traffic we have.

We can do our part by following the rules and impart education as and when situation arises. I am doing my part in my routine trips from home to office (sometimes with love and sometimes with a slap - anything that'll make people understand)

[Sawyer]

Originally Posted by entropy

I think more than road-widening it is the education/discipline and basic traffic common-sense that needs to be given to our society. Look at Tokyo. Not very wide roads in the city and yet they can reasonably well handle several times more the traffic we have.

We can do our part by following the rules and impart education as and when situation arises. I am doing my part in my routine trips from home to office (sometimes with love and sometimes with a slap - anything that'll make people understand)

Exactly right - except for the slap part till I know exactly what you mean!
The Japanese extreme courtesy and bowing is just the visible tip of the way they are able to live on a crowded island in harmony.
It is one thing to fret for the loss of a city that one grew up in. It is quite another to know that for what one has lost, nothing real has been gained.

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by Sawyer

I did this till last year because of the generally wider roads and parking places that now exist, so as far as I am concerned, it is as real as it can get. I finally came to my senses this year and bought a Spark to use in the city.

You are the first person i have come to know who has actually bought a bigger car because there is a wider road!!

Btw, is the Spark an LPG one?

[Sawyer]

Originally Posted by amitoj

You are the first person i have come to know who has actually bought a bigger car because there is a wider road!!

Btw, is the Spark an LPG one?

I could introduce you to many more, if you wish! No, it is not LPG, I was very uncomfortable with a car that makes it mandatory to carry a fuel extinguisher in the car.

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by Sawyer

I could introduce you to many more, if you wish! No, it is not LPG, I was very uncomfortable with a car that makes it mandatory to carry a fuel extinguisher in the car.

LOL. No thanks. I am pretty happy with my current circle of down to earth humble folks. They prescribe to "Jitni chaadar, utna pair pasaaro", not "jitni chaudee sadak, utni badee gaadi"

Anyway, there was this one lone coconut tree that used to stand in the middle of the road in one of the back lanes of JP Nagar. they cut it down recently. Probably some two wheeler ran into the tree and the tree had to pay for it.

[suman]

Originally Posted by amitoj

You are the first person i have come to know who has actually bought a bigger car because there is a wider road!!

Originally Posted by Sawyer

I could introduce you to many more, if you wish!

I am really & honestly thankful after reading this.

Thankful that I'm not part of the circles where car buying decisions are influenced by road widening in the neighbourhood

[Sawyer]

Haven't you guys been living in India??!! Do you think that the correlation between the car size growth and road widths is only a statistical anomaly with zero cause effect relationships?

[lohithrao]

Sawyer, great topic!

I remember old yelahanka was a place where once could find many huge trees, some years i used to go there often just because there was lot of green cover... today it looks barren...

Many cases the wide road is used as parking space, and we know how good Indians are when it comes to parking. whatever space was made after cutting trees is lost on parking... it just looks as if one needed a reason to cut trees

There used to be a narrow road connecting from hennur to yelahanka, just one deviation from the ring road and one could find himself surrounded lush green...trees all around and lots of open spcae and fields. today the road has been widened most of the open space is used to build flats and building... am sure in some time once can find themselves in a jam.

But no matter how much they widen the road, am sure we still would have traffic related issues.

Thanks to peoples common/civic sense!

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by Sawyer

Haven't you guys been living in India??!! Do you think that the correlation between the car size growth and road widths is only a statistical anomaly with zero cause effect relationships?

Do you have that correlation number handy on you? How does it compare with correlation between car size growth and increase in middle class and above's income? Or with correlation between car size growth and more affordable bigger cars?

The India that we live in still makes its buying decisions based on purchasing power, not road width.

[suman]

Originally Posted by Sawyer

Haven't you guys been living in India??!!

Yes, but with feet firmly on the ground

Interesting correlation you've come up with - and all this time I thought it was all about the increase in salaries & (hence) purchasing power of the middle classes. Sheesh, how wrong I was

As Amitoj was asking, any statistics or just another general comment???

[Samurai]

Well, I bought a SUV because of terrible road conditions after moving from Bangalore. Otherwise I would still have the Baleno. I started looking from Gama and ended up with GV.

[Sawyer]

Its a combination of all these things - car size growth, growth in the number of car owning people, and the number of cars per family. It could be a negative correlation too - the lack of a road wide enough to drive and park on discourages the purchase of a bigger car. You provide more space, the equations change.

[Sli_ce]

Originally Posted by Sawyer

In the longer term, we are going to end up in India with unliveable cities. Or cities that shape people's thinking about each other, and about life, in ways that make me happy that I have fewer years ahead than behind me.
.

Sometimes i imagine a picture when everything in our cities would come to a grinding halt, not just traffic but all resource and amenities,
when the capacity of all our system's in place would simply prove insufficient for the mass that we are.
When all the measures to accommodate the ever going expansion would simply fail and result in a complete collapse, a total breakdown ..
maybe im just over thinking.
sorry for going OT.

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by Sawyer

Its a combination of all these things - car size growth, growth in the number of car owning people, and the number of cars per family. It could be a negative correlation too - the lack of a road wide enough to drive and park on discourages the purchase of a bigger car. You provide more space, the equations change.

Parking space in a house is a factor for buying a bigger car. I agree. Width of road in front of the house is a factor, i don't agree. Simply because if one parks on the road outside his/her house, they park it parallal to the road, not perpendicular. That takes road width out of the equation in going for a bigger car.