[ashwin.terminat]

Take a look at what I found at my work place's cab parking lot today.

A Tempo Traveller fitted with dual horns.

No, not the horns that we have on our vehicles.

Actual, real, pointy, horns.



If he bumped into someone, these things could cause real damage as those horns look to be right at kidney height!



How do these things make it to our roads in the first place?

To lighten the mood, my brother travelled on his bike today from Victoria Layout to Trinity Circle with a lady's undergarment resting on his bag. If anyone has taken any photos, please do share!

[suresh_gs]

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[sunishsamuel]

Today afternoon, on my way to office, ended up with a minor traffic snarl at the Iblur junction. Its just after the Army camp where the road deviates towards ORR and Sarjapur. During this time noticed a guy on his Activa riding on the wrong side, guess he was planning to go towards Agara.

He almost hit a middle aged person who was standing on the road. The middle aged person questioned the rider coming on the wrong side. What amuses me is that the rider gets off the scooter and hits the middle aged person, quickly runs away with his scooter. Riding on the wrong side isn't a crime, but questioning that is a crime !

[ashwin.terminat]

Originally Posted by sunishsamuel

What amuses me is that the rider gets off the scooter and hits the middle aged person, quickly runs away with his scooter.

Such are the rogues that occupy our roads. I've no idea on what grounds we can call ours a safe city. This city really needs a Batman. An outlaw.

Anyway, here are some questions regarding the TenderSURE project answered;

Honey, these folks have shrunk the vehicle lane...
Currently, every spare bit of road is asphalted and given away to vehicles. But this is grossly inefficient apart from being wrong – there is enough scientific data to show that vehicles that go out of lane to return back to it end up delaying everyone down the lane chain. Vehicles will move more smoothly and faster with uniform lanes. Given the challenges in land acquisition, Tender SURE checks out the minimum right of way within a road stretch and plans for the uniform motor lanes based on that.

Currently, every spare bit of road is asphalted and given away to vehicles. But this is grossly inefficient apart from being wrong – there is enough scientific data to show that vehicles that go out of lane to return back to it end up delaying everyone down the lane chain. Vehicles will move more smoothly and faster with uniform lanes. Given the challenges in land acquisition, Tender SURE checks out the minimum right of way within a road stretch and plans for the uniform motor lanes based on that.

Why so much width for pedestrians?

The underground utilities are all planned under the pedestrian walkway. So consider the width required in laying Sewerage pipes, Water pipes, Power cables, OFC / Gas cable ducts, Storm water drains, alongside – it does need a fair amount of space! And then there are some massive trees on some of the walk ways. We need to preserve that too and also provide for pedestrians to walk on the footpath without having to step onto the road.

Coming back to my car, what about parking spaces?
Our roads are already clogged and it’s going to get worse with over 1,500 vehicles being bought per day. There is no hope for the future unless we embrace public transportation (rail, bus, shared cabs, autos) and alternate modes (walking, cycling) on a large scale basis. In London at the iconic Shard building there are no parking slots except for handicapped persons. The message is clear – you are welcome, your personal vehicle is not. So once again – parking is not a birthright that the city needs to or can deliver on. The city needs to focus on other mobility modes (including walking) and public transportation investments are critical.

Pedestrians ok, but where are the cyclists?
Yes, it takes a very brave individual to take their cycle on our roads. But build the safe passages for them and they will come. Copenhagen has over 70% cycle usage with supporting infrastructure. It’s got a zero carbon footprint and a sustainable mode of transportation even after our fossil fuels dry up. And Bengaluru has the weather that cries out for us to take out our cycles for short commutes.

Source:
http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/a...tm_source=copy

I, for one, totally endorse the cyclists bit. Riding a bicycle on Bangalore's roads is dangerous due to the undulations our roads provide as well as the ruthless drivers/riders that we spot on the streets. Apart from that, this seems like a perfect long term plan. They seem to have things well sorted out. And I do honestly believe that professional urban planners have considered all the things us amateur urban planners are worried about. They have eyes, they have brains, they can process it just like we can. But perhaps their understanding is different given their line of work.

[haria]

Originally Posted by suresh_gs

Is it really required to have such a wide space for pedestrians to walk. As such there is shortage of road space.

Originally Posted by ashwin.terminat

That said, size of the footpath aside, the footpath looks beautiful. Space for trees, little grills around these trees.

Originally Posted by sumzup

Well, any amount of space is not enough for the roads. So the debate on how much is so much will never cease to challenge both the city planners and users.

let me tell you the tale from KRpuram - Scene is Basavanapura Main Road.. The road was narrow to start with, add to that some wise guy had the idea to make an extra large footpath - the end result - all the shops on the road are happily using the footpath space to keep their wares, pedestrians are as usual walking on the road AND the road has become less wider by at least couple of feet, leading to traffic jams, in the erstwhile free flowing road.

While the intention of footpaths is good, after it is executed, ensuring that it remains operational in the manner it was intended - is where our system goes for a toss.

[suresh_gs]

Originally Posted by haria

let me tell you the tale from KRpuram - Scene is Basavanapura Main Road.. The road was narrow to start with, add to that some wise guy had the idea to make an extra large footpath - the end result - all the shops on the road are happily using the footpath space to keep their wares, pedestrians are as usual walking on the road AND the road has become less wider by at least couple of feet, leading to traffic jams, in the erstwhile free flowing road.

While the intention of footpaths is good, after it is executed, ensuring that it remains operational in the manner it was intended - is where our system goes for a toss.

Making the footpaths wider will not serve the purpose of pedestrians as the hawkers will make hay. This will also prompt the 2 wheelers to use the footpaths due to shortage of road space.

Originally Posted by sunishsamuel

Today afternoon, on my way to office, ended up with a minor traffic snarl at the Iblur junction. Its just after the Army camp where the road deviates towards ORR and Sarjapur. During this time noticed a guy on his Activa riding on the wrong side, guess he was planning to go towards Agara.

He almost hit a middle aged person who was standing on the road. The middle aged person questioned the rider coming on the wrong side. What amuses me is that the rider gets off the scooter and hits the middle aged person, quickly runs away with his scooter. Riding on the wrong side isn't a crime, but questioning that is a crime !

Hopefully the middle aged person got away with no or minor injuries. This is the sorry state of affairs in Bangalore. It is quite common to see people coming in the wrong direction but getting down, beating the other person and getting back to ride shows the nature of DHARMA ADI (Getting beatings free of cost).

[hserus]

Road dividers in much of the city are not painted yellow and black, and often broken with pieces lying to the side - in a rainstorm last sunday, this caused me to mount a divider and end up with one wheel on the other side of it. :(

[silversteed]

Originally Posted by sunishsamuel

...noticed a guy on his Activa riding on the wrong side, guess he was planning to go towards Agara.

He almost hit a middle aged person who was standing on the road. The middle aged person questioned the rider coming on the wrong side. What amuses me is that the rider gets off the scooter and hits the middle aged person, quickly runs away with his scooter.

Not sure if I'd mentioned it in this thread before, but I've had my run-ins with imbeciles riding on footpaths. Location is the footpath in front of the fuel station at the corner of St.John's hospital bus stop. It was quite a few years ago, and there was no median to separate the traffic wanting to go straignt towards Madiwala and those turning left towards Koramangala water tank, from Forum mall side. As is normal during evenings, there was a block, and a hero comes riding on the footpath, on his Yezdi. I was walking along towards the bus stop, with a friend whom I wanted to see off.

The hero is behind me, honks, we ignore and keep walking. He keeps honking, and revs the engine too, we ignore. Now, he nudges me with his tyre. I lost it. Turned around and niftly pulled out the key from his Yezdi's ignition pod. He didn't quite expect it, and I expected the engine to die which didn't happen (remember, Yezdi). Some not-so-gentlemanly words were exchanged and I realised that the engine was still running - a moment's distraction for me - hero escapes in that moment - but gets down on the road.

Looking back at it, I was looking like a fool, having locked horns with a low-life. Not even a single person bothered to check what was going on, despite some heated verbal exchange at good decibel levels. My friend, who was obviously scared, cried for help, that too fell on deaf ears. There were a couple of guys who were watching this scene, probably amused because I'm no Schwarzenegger yet having the guts to yell at a 6' nincompoop.

[chandrda]

A Container Truck had broken down right at the entrance of the Agara flyover towards Sarjapur. I passed by at 6:30 AM.

Hope its moved before causing chaos on Monday Morning

Regards

[hserus]

Originally Posted by chandrda

A Container Truck had broken down right at the entrance of the Agara flyover towards Sarjapur. I passed by at 6:30 AM.

Hope its moved before causing chaos on Monday Morning

Regards

I was supposed to drive down that in another half an hour. Thanks for the heads up. I guess I'm just going to call in and say I will work from home.

[NPV]

We had to attend a wedding reception on sunday evening in one of the wedding halls in the Rajajajinagar industrial area. I took the Mekhri circle-Yeshwanthpur-ISKCON-Chord Route road and it was only traffic, traffic and more traffic
First, the mango mela outside the Palace grounds near Fun World side resulted in traffic backing up all the way till Benson Town, then from Sadashivanagar Police Station, all the way to Yeshwanthpur it was just not moving (is it like this always ? I dread to even imagine how the weekday scenes will be like here!). Almost entire traffic was waiting to take the service road to go below the flyover at Yeshwanthpur *surprising*
And after I took the ramp towards ISKCON, again there was very very slow moving traffic all the way till the industrial estate. Despite several underpasses and flyovers having been constructed on this stretch just did not seem to help. We took 2.5 hours to reach the hall
On the way back, we left at 10:20 and reached home by 11 but there was slow moving traffic on Chord Road even at that time! Seeing the road towards Rajajinagar MEI Polytechnic being empty I took that and returned via Okalipuram, Race course road which turned out to be much faster - just about 45 minutes.

[sandsun7]

Originally Posted by NPV

from Sadashivanagar Police Station, all the way to Yeshwanthpur it was just not moving (is it like this always ? I dread to even imagine how the weekday scenes will be like here!). Almost entire traffic was waiting to take the service road to go below the flyover at Yeshwanthpur

I was driving towards IISC gymkhana on saturday evening around 7 from Mehkri circle side. Traffic had piled up to Sadashivnagar PS signal. It took me nearly 20 minutes to reach gymkhana gate from sadashivnagar PS. There was complete chaos on top of the CNR rao underpass with buses from Mathikere side taking right U turn to go towards Yesvantpur, and traffic towards Yesvantpur moving at less than a snails pace beyond that.

[NPV]

Originally Posted by sandsun7

There was complete chaos on top of the CNR rao underpass with buses from Mathikere side taking right U turn to go towards Yesvantpur, and traffic towards Yesvantpur moving at less than a snails pace beyond that.

Ditto yesterday evening as well which is why I asked if this is a regular scene at that place ?
Is this underpass also going the Richmond flyover (and several others like the National college flyover, etc) way ?
It seemed to me that the traffic on either side of the underpass was just too much to handle for the narrow ramps provided whereas the underpass itself that goes towards Malleswaram/Sankey tank had hardly any traffic
And as usual there were some innovative motorists inlcuding some Force Traveller cabs who managed to appear in the wrong way, using their ultra-smartness to move ahead of other law-abiding fools (as they think!)

[gpa]

Originally Posted by silversteed

I've had my run-ins with imbeciles riding on footpaths.

Kudos to you for attempting to thwart this menace but its appalling that no one wanted to lend a hand. The next time, just whisk out your cell phone and click a video/photo of the imbecile and tell him you'll upload it on the Bangalore Traffic Police page on Facebook. This threat works and they usually back down.

[hserus]

Originally Posted by gpa

Kudos to you for attempting to thwart this menace but its appalling that no one wanted to lend a hand. The next time, just whisk out your cell phone and click a video/photo of the imbecile and tell him you'll upload it on the Bangalore Traffic Police page on Facebook. This threat works and they usually back down.

Quite a few years ago and guy riding a Yezdi = there probably weren't even nokia 1100s around then, just rotary dial black telephones These days the only guys riding Yezdis are likely to be bhpians, even the milkmen have got newer vehicles.