[esteem_lover]

Guys, this thread is a wonderful place to discuss what goes on and what we saw today etc etc, but if we start taking the city apart for 'somone elses' ' mistakes and none of ours, it does not serve any purpose. I suggest, we should not generalize and only talk about what you have seen or faced in the last few weeks and ideas and suggestions about how to save ourselves from such problems.

[AlphaKilo]

Originally Posted by esteem_lover

Either we guys with this amazing sense of discipline should live in Europe or just stop pretending. Everyone knows what it is in India, why do we always find someone else to blame for all our problems ?

OT: Sirji,now you know why I have been packed off to Europe

You are correct, we are a bunch of blame gamers and only a few stand-up and really get their hands dirty. Frankly speaking, we could confess here, without going OT, that how many of us, are really ready to do what I had been doing on road, i.e. follow rules irrespective of the moron(if I may call rule-breakers so, they have their reasons to do so!) behind/ahead/by our side does? (I am saying, I am the best or the correct guy, but I did try my part and I am proud about being a straight stick so far!)

PS: My request: I think the above statement of mine might lead us OT. please let us concentrate on the discussion only about traffic in chennai.

[headers]

Originally Posted by AlphaKilo

PS: My request: I think the above statement of mine might lead us OT. please let us concentrate on the discussion only about traffic in chennai.

The traffic in Chennai is superb. One needs to understand how to drive through the same.

Certain under developed pockets have their share of woes but nevertheless, the Chennai traffic moves most of the time unless for some major accident.

[anachronix]

Compared to all the cities I have lived in, Chennai traffic has been more predictable and moving all the time. What more, multiple routes to a destination always gives an option to skip traffic!

I drive everyday from Perambur to Taramani and my route is through the nerve of the city via Kellys, Egmore, Greams Road, Anna Salai, Kotturpuram & Madhya Kailash. It takes me 1 hour to do this 24Kms at 10 in the morning. Fair enough for me after spending couple of hours to do 15Kms from ECity to Koramangala during my BLR days! :-)

[binand]

Originally Posted by esteem_lover

Either we guys with this amazing sense of discipline should live in Europe or just stop pretending. Everyone knows what it is in India, why do we always find someone else to blame for all our problems ?

Well, I did learn my driving in Europe (have a EU license to show for it) and I do think I have an amazing sense of discipline. :-) I chose to return to India due to other reasons, none traffic/driving related.

Now, for your second question - everyone belongs to some special interest group or other and each such SIG believes that the solution to any problem does not involve any behavioural or procedural modifications within it. Us car owners think that it is the cab drivers who cause issues, the cab drivers think that the cab owners with unreasonable revenue expectations are the problem, cab owners feel that clients with high buyer power drive down margins to near-zero levels, client companies have administrative managers with strict budgetary controls but tight SLAs to meet, and so on... you can build a chain of such SIGs. What we need is consensus building among these SIGs. That requires strong leadership, which is what this nation sorely lacks (all we have are parochial small-timers).

[anachronix]

OT:

Have been spotting a white Honda Accord at St.Isabel's hospital with the Teambhp stickers on the regn plates. Who are you BHPian!? :-)

[aabidansari]

Piggy back on the roads of chennai.

[narayans80]

Originally Posted by anachronix

I drive everyday from Perambur to Taramani and my route is through the nerve of the city via Kellys, Egmore, Greams Road, Anna Salai, Kotturpuram & Madhya Kailash. It takes me 1 hour to do this 24Kms at 10 in the morning. Fair enough for me after spending couple of hours to do 15Kms from ECity to Koramangala during my BLR days! :-)

But isn't that an apple to orange comparison ? Perambur-Taramani is fairly in-city roads as opposed to Koramangala-Ecity. Its more like Guindy-Vandalur where you don't have much bylanes to workaround.

Related to your route, I did Ega-Taramani via Egmore, Spencer, Royapettah, Mylapore, Greenways Road, Madhya Kailash, its much faster but not much car friendly. Will work best with a bike.

Originally Posted by binand

Us car owners think that it is the cab drivers who cause issues

On the contrary, I had never had trouble with negotiating the 4-wheeled breed. Its the empty autos and sub-100 cc bikes that I have never come to terms with.

[anachronix]

Originally Posted by narayans80

But isn't that an apple to orange comparison ? Perambur-Taramani is fairly in-city roads as opposed to Koramangala-Ecity. Its more like Guindy-Vandalur where you don't have much bylanes to workaround.

Its Apples and oranges if you think there is only one road to Electronic City from Koramangala

There were 3 different routes that I used to take depending on the traffic!

[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by anachronix

Its Apples and oranges if you think there is only one road to Electronic City from Koramangala

There were 3 different routes that I used to take depending on the traffic!

Can you enlighten on the alternate routes. I badly need it since I get stuck during peak hours

[binand]

Originally Posted by narayans80

On the contrary, I had never had trouble with negotiating the 4-wheeled breed. Its the empty autos and sub-100 cc bikes that I have never come to terms with.

That was only an illustration. You can apply similar arguments to autos and sub-100 cc bikes too.

[narayans80]

Originally Posted by anachronix

Its Apples and oranges if you think there is only one road to Electronic City from Koramangala

Am not saying there is only one road, but if there is a roadblock 500m ahead, you can't simply go back dive into XY Street and get out of YZ Street can you ?

Originally Posted by sagarpadaki

Can you enlighten on the alternate routes. I badly need it since I get stuck during peak hours

I can think of Tavarakere-BTM petrol pump-29th Main-Bannerghatta Road-Left at Accenture-Arekere-Begur. This route is ofcourse long and you'll have a bit of traffic till you cross Honeywell. I stayed at Arekere before and there's hardly any traffic this route to E-City.
~~~~~
On an unrelated note, was returning home on Saturday 930pm from Navalur. Vehicles were driven rather sanely at 60-70 kmph even when there were miles of clear road ahead. This included lot of yellow boarders too. I've seen slightly sedate speeds on Sunday daytime, but on Saturday that too with cabbies looks highly unusual.

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by narayans80

was returning home on Saturday 930pm from Navalur. Vehicles were driven rather sanely at 60-70 kmph even when there were miles of clear road ahead. I've seen slightly sedate speeds on Sunday daytime, but on Saturday that too with cabbies looks highly unusual.

Possibly speed-camera or speed-checks on the way ?

BTW, for the last few days I have been noticing cop activity on Chennai-One road late in the evenings (9PM or so), with patrol jeeps parked near cars/tempos on this road with cops talking to the drivers, though could not make out what the fuss was about. It looks like the cops are checking vehicles parked on the unilluminated road for any illegal activity.

[anachronix]

Originally Posted by sagarpadaki

Can you enlighten on the alternate routes. I badly need it since I get stuck during peak hours

I am not too familiar with the names of the places that I used to cross, but the route via HSR Layout around a small hill owned by the army and through some small roads to reach in front of HTMT and the other route was HSR Layout and all the way to Bosch and then EC. There was another route that goes via Wipro to reach Bannerghatta road as well which I used to take when I was staying at BTM layout for sometime.

Originally Posted by narayans80

Am not saying there is only one road, but if there is a roadblock 500m ahead, you can't simply go back dive into XY Street and get out of YZ Street can you ?

Yes, you are right! But there were options to go to EC the moment I realise there is a long wait to cross Bommanahalli. Similarly, if I have to go to places within the city for an e.g.MG Road from Koramangala which is hardly 6KMs I used to spend close to an hour (my route was via Ejipura and then I used to take some shortcut to skip traffic via the theater thats behind Infant Jesus Church).

I am not trying to put down Bangalore for anything after I lived there for over 7 years, but then the traffic situation is much easier for me in Chennai is what I feel!

[headers]

Originally Posted by anachronix

I am not trying to put down Bangalore for anything after I lived there for over 7 years, but then the traffic situation is much easier for me in Chennai is what I feel!

Yup - The traffic in Chennai moves unlike Bangalore. Dont get me wrong - I love Bangalore for things apart from driving on the road.

The traffic signals are way too long each side and the lethargy of the system makes each junction a 20 minute ordeal!

Chennai on the other hand is much faster apart from certain under developed parts of the city