Commute

I was pretty excited and went with a lot of hope to attend a 'Namma Karnataka' development conclave at Vidhana Soudha on February 17, jointly organised by a media house and Government of Karnataka. The event, however, turned out to be a major marketing and propaganda exercise of government’s infamous Elevated Road Corridor Project. Large flex banners highlighting the project had been put up at the venue, and the panel discussion on Bengaluru’s transport issues hardly had any discussion, and there was no question and answer session. Since I and many other invitees did not get an opportunity to voice…

Should we allow more apartments  to come up near Kanakapura Road in Bengaluru because it has a metro line that can help people living there to commute? Do we allow more tech parks near Guindy in Chennai because it is well connected by bus and suburban train? Did Mumbai grow around the local train? Are transit lines the new age rivers?Transit oriented development (ToD) or development oriented transit (DoT) -- What should it be for Indian cities? Are these some of the questions that play on your mind when you think of what is happening in our cities today in…

The Prime Minister of India had urged people to use public transportation rather than personal vehicles during the Global Mobility Seminar held in September 2018. This would require public transportation to be incentivised and private vehicle ownership/usage to be disincentivised. Public bus transportation in Bengaluru is ailing, with the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transportation Corporation (BMTC) seeking Rs 260 crores from the state government to sustain its existing level of services. Currently the BMTC is running on a loss of Rs 10 for every kilometer that it operates. There have been discussions by the Transport Department to propose a bus fare hike. This…

In an interview with Citizen Matters done in 2016, Rajendra Kumar Mishra, popularly known as R K Mishra, had said that the proposed elevated corridor project would encourage public transport. This was at the height of the public opposition to the proposed Steel flyover where the pros and cons of flyovers were being hotly debated. In the last part of our four part series on the Steel Flyover/ elevated corridor projects, we spoke to Misra, who as a member of the Chief Minister's Vision Group, had batted for the Elevated Corridor Project. Right at the outset, Mishra denied ever being…

This article is part of a special series: Air Quality in our Cities Bengaluru has thousands of two-stroke auto rickshaws, which have proved to be a bane in the scheme of things where shift to eco-friendly vehicles needs to happen quickly to counter the air pollution crisis the city is facing. And this is taking time, as the government's plans seem to be ineffective. In November 2018, Radio Active 90.4 MHz CR a community radio station did a study of government's plan to phase out 2-stroke autos and move to 4-stroke autos. They held a focus group discussion with auto drivers…

On a bright winter Sunday, you may feel the warm sun beckoning you. It seems to say: Take your car out and enjoy my glory even more. Surely, there would be little traffic on a holiday. But not in Delhi. Especially not if you plan to drive from South Delhi to Gurgaon or vice versa, through the mess that is the Rao Tula Ram Marg flyover. The beautiful sunny day soon becomes a sweaty anger-spewing, abuse-hurling one. And this is the road that connects South Delhi to the airport, which should have a smooth hassle free ride. The bottleneck you…

The steel flyover project is an ugly manifestation of our unbridled urbanisation mindset. This is yet another myopic economic proposal to exacerbate urbanisation; it seems to us, and is mindlessly espousing the following: Covering the soil which has lower heat conductivity, with an impermeable layer of concrete which has much higher capacity to conduct heat. Replacing life sustaining trees with air conditioners Spewing billions of tons of toxic gases into air by vehicular movements and industrial activities, so as to choke the city. Generating colossal quantities of solid waste to convert the garden city into a garbage city Facilitating concentration…

Ananya (name changed) is a resident who lives near  Sarjapur Road. She finds her daily walk along Sarjapur Road an arduous ritual. “Trying to cross these roads, especially during the morning rush hour, is nerve-wracking,” she says. “I’ve come close to being hit by vehicles who don’t slow down so that [pedestrians] can cross, or decide to speed too close where we walk. Once that’s done, I need to pick my way through broken bits of the pavement and open gutters before I reach my bus stop.” Residents and pedestrians on Sarjapur Road look danger in the eye when they…

If you are a person who commutes by walk to work or just likes to walk, you would understand how difficult that can be in Bengaluru - due to non-existent footpaths. Even if they exist they are usually less wide or in a decrepit state. Having to cross the roads is another herculean task. When one thinks of road accidents, rarely does one think of situations where pedestrians are involved. A study by National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) had earlier pointed to pedestrians being among the most vulnerable to road accidents, accounting for around 30-40 percent of…

When a 93-year-old school on College Road, a cluster of shops in Purasaiwakkam and over a hundred homes that offerred new life to repatriates from Burma and Sri Lanka in Assisi Nagar were served eviction notices in July for the construction of Phase 2 of Chennai Metro, the affected came together to launch a fight to save their land from the project. Chennai Metro wanted the land for its Phase 2 which will cover 108 kms and span three corridors. The priority corridors 3 and 5, for which the land is being sought, are to see construction first and will run between Madhavaram -…