roads

October 11, 2019: Nida Shaikh, 25, died on the spot after she was run over by a truck. She was riding pillion with her cousin, and both fell off when the scooter hit a pothole causing her cousin to lose control of the vehicle. While her cousin was injured, Nida, a doctor, was crushed by the truck. October 13, 2019: Ramprasad Goswni, 56, died on the spot after a truck hit him as the driver was trying to dodge a pothole. It was in the same place where Nida Shaikh lost her life. October 29, 2019: Ranjendra Dongre, 42, was…

“The roads of my colony have been damaged to such an extent due to rains that our friends avoid visiting us,” said Ajay Kumar, an engineering student, who lives in Meenakshi Planet Colony on Hoshangabad Road. “Many residents here have been injured in accidents because of the poor condition of roads. Last month my room-mate Satish ran onto a water-filled pothole and his bike got stuck. Luckily, he escaped with minor bruises”. It’s a story many of Bhopal’s residents narrate. Continuous rains in the state have destroyed crops and washed away roads and culverts in the city and on the…

For several years now, ordinary citizens across the country with no end to their woes around poor roads and potholes have taken creative routes and come up with the most innovative ideas to make their dissent heard. For instance, Bengaluru-based artiste Baadal Najundaswamy has, since 2014, been planting fake crocodiles, organizing non-commercial modeling-shoots or etching art around sunken or unattended manholes to attract government attention. In another instance, a truck driver ‘buried himself’ in a pothole, in September 2019 to protest against bad roads and potholes on ‘Greenland Chowkadi’, a service road adjacent to National Highway 27. The Rajkot-based man…

Co-authored by Dattatraya T Devare and Saurabh Ketkar Imagine two people on cycles alongside each other riding down a road. One has a state-of-the-art bicycle, made out of carbon fibre with the best disc brakes and a customised seat. The other has a generic cycle made without any gears or fancy materials. When they both come to a stop, one thing is fairly certain, both of them will be sweating and will even smile at each other. If they are friends, they will stop for a chat and catch up over this fortuitous rendezvous. This scenario would be hardly likely…

Co-authored by Dattatraya T Devare and Saurabh Ketkar If the train transformed the way we think about a nation and distance, then it is the car that has transformed the way we think about public spaces and community. Prior to the invention of the private motor car, the street was an integral part of the community; children played on them, people gathered to share news, exchange views and traded goods and services. After the car invaded this integral communal space, the way we look at the world around us has changed forever.  In India today, our citizens aspire to be…

Co-authored by Dattatraya T Devare and Saurabh Ketkar None of us can escape being a pedestrian. No matter which mode of transport you use, at some point of the day, you will be a pedestrian if you step out of home. But the moment you alight from any mode of transport or vehicle, and get on your own two feet in this country, you are perhaps the most vulnerable citizen on the street. In 2018, more than half of the fatalities on Mumbai streets were pedestrians; the numbers for Delhi and Bengaluru also do not look encouraging with 44% and…

Co-authored by Dattatraya T Devare and Saurabh Ketkar It is not news that urban Indian roads are a nightmare, and Bangalore is perhaps in the contention for winning the award for the worst traffic scenario. But one needs to dig deeper to find the root of the problem. Our streets are extremely unequal, in more ways than one. The streets of our city are perhaps the most democratic of spaces we can envision. Protests against governments, demands of minority groups, gay pride parades all find expression on the streets. It is the one space that every citizen can share with…

Jagraon, a small township about 50 kilometres from Ludhiana Railway Terminus, has nothing much to distinguish it from other such towns on National Highway 5, except for an infamous, but very important bridge named after it. Till July 14 2016, when it was barred for traffic by the Railways, the original British-built Jagraon bridge, along with a parallel single lane bridge built in 1970 to accommodate the increasing traffic, was the lifeline for commuters in Ludhiana, Punjab's largest city and industrial hub, which once led to the city being bestowed with the title, Manchester of the East. Built as simple…

In 2006, Pune became the second city after Ahmedabad to introduce the BRTS (Bus Rapid Transit System) project, an ambitious scheme that envisaged the implementation of a high-quality public transport system to offset the rising vehicular traffic and the subsequent congestion within city limits. To provide its citizens with a reliable medium of public transport, the scheme promised the construction and layout of dedicated bus corridors along with new air-conditioned buses and high-end terminals and stations. In its pilot phase, the project partly operationalised a high capacity bus system on two corridors, the Swargate–Hadapsar (East‐West) Corridor of 10.2 km, and…

As of 15 July 2019, the demolition of the Jayadeva Flyover, 11 years after it was built, has started, with the upper part (leading from Bannerghatta Road to Outer Ring Road) being closed to traffic. I am marking the date to see how long this changeover from road to road/Metro will take.