Commute

Did you know that BBMP is liable to pay you compensation if you get injured in a pothole accident? This is as per a High Court order in July. BBMP refused to act on the order initially. But after warnings from the court, it published a newspaper ad last month saying compensation would be given on a case-by-case basis. However, currently there are no guidelines on the process for applying for compensation, a point of contact, or on the compensation amount to be paid for different types of injuries. BBMP has also challenged High Court's order in the Supreme Court.…

Two novel proposals - longer pedestrian walkways and pedestrian-only roads on certain days of the week - make the latest draft of the Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) for Bengaluru Metropolitan Area significantly different from its four-year-old predecessor. CMP has been prepared to chalk out short and long-term plans for solving the city’s traffic mess.  Click here for the full summary of the Comprehensive Mobility Plan 2019 But unlike previous proposals that paid little or no attention to non-motorised transport, namely pedestrians and cyclists, the new draft CMP has specified pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. Whether this is integrated into the larger…

The Department of Urban Land Transport (DULT) has published a draft of the Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) for Bengaluru Metropolitan Area. The document has brought back the controversial Elevated Corridor project (road-over-road), 92 km of which has been proposed at the cost of Rs 18,480 crore. The CMP itself is necessitated by the centre’s Metro Policy which clearly states that funding for the Metro would require cities to develop a comprehensive mobility plan. Here is a summary of the proposals in this plan.  Many of the new three-phase CMP project proposals are there in the earlier plans proposed in 2011…

Cycling was originally proposed as one of the preferred means of mass transport in Chandigarh city by its designer Le Corbusier himself. Corbusier envisaged laying out cycle tracks (classified as V7 and V8 roads) as part of the Master Plan for the city during its construction in the 1950s. As per the plan, every V3 road (fast vehicular roads dividing the sectors) across the city was to have a V7 road (cycle track), or a V8 road (cycle track plus footpath). “The Master Plan envisaged laying out cycle tracks of over 200 kms,” said Navdeep Asija, Traffic Advisor to the…

A couple of months ago, a mother and child met with a serious accident on the Varthur-Gunjur road. Passersby rushed them to a nearby hospital after they suffered injuries. Earlier this month, the condition of a Whitefield road became so poor that a school had to come forward to fix the road. A teacher from the school had met with an accident on the pothole-ridden road; one can only imagine how unsafe the school children would have been. We know of many such instances where commuters got injured or even lost their lives due to the poor condition of roads in Bengaluru. In…

As an engineer, I always try to find logic in everything. After years of persistent effort, I finally concede - there's no logic when it comes to hailing an autorickshaw in Namma Bengaluru. Autos refusing a ride isn't uncommon in Bengaluru. But a few weeks ago I had my moment of epiphany when six empty autos - all going in the same direction - refused me a ride on the straight, freshly white-topped stretch from Silk Board Junction to Koramangala Forum mall. The distance - not more than 2 km. That's when it dawned on me - hiring an auto…

On October 4th, 33-year-old Vyas (name changed), an IT professional, fell and broke his right knee when his scooter bumped into a pothole. The surgery afterwards, recurring hospital bills, physiotherapy, expenses for medicines, scooter repair etc have drained him of over Rs 4,34,323 so far. And he is still bed-ridden. Vyas has been sending emails to one government department after the other, hoping for compensation. But there’s been no response. The reason? BBMP has never had a mechanism to compensate victims of pothole accidents despite the high number of victims. So far, compensation has been purely at the ‘discretion’ of…

On November 27th, a tweet by Ashok Khemka, principal secretary of the Science and Technology Department, caught the attention of netizens and media, though one cannot call it entirely surprising. A senior IAS officer of the Haryana cadre, Khemka was already known to be Haryana's second-most transferred bureaucrat (52 times in his 27 years of service) and shared news of his 53rd transfer through this tweet. https://twitter.com/AshokKhemka_IAS/status/1199625574173462528 Khemka, born in Kolkata** and an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, shot to limelight through a series of exposés, including the Robert Vadra DLF land grab scam, Sonepat-Kharkhoda IMT land scam case and Garhi…

63-year-old Kamalamma (name changed) was peacefully walking with her husband at 5.30 am in a quiet locality in Bengaluru. Little did she know that fate had a terrible plan for her. Two youngsters on a bike sped past them, close enough to brush against her. Her life changed forever! She fell down, hit her head against the curb, and has been bed-ridden for the last 10 years. My dear friend lost her 17-year-old son in a road accident, when he and a friend set off on a bike to wish their friends on a new-year eve. Both of them had…

Shankari Halder finally dreamed of steering her life in the right direction when she became a commercial cab driver in Kolkata, early this year. The 36-year-old was one among the 10 women who were trained to operate a first-of-its kind cab service in Kolkata. Christened as Pink Taxis, these 10 cabs were launched primarily with the aim of providing a secure and safe commute environment for women, who often find it risky to travel in cabs driven by male chauffeurs. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee flagged off the first fleet of 10 taxis painted in pink and white from Nabanna, the…