Commute

We suffered for months with bad roads. And my recent article on Citizen Matters got some good comments. One especially good comment was the 'sit in bund' suggested  to galvanise a reaction from the powers that be.  Castle Street now free of potholes. Pic: MN. Then on Sunday morning we were so surprised to see road rollers move in and a group of labourers sweeping off the mud. By nightfall the entire stretch of Castle Street had been done and you can see from the picture which is taken at the same place, before and after, there is an amazing difference. …

Joint Transport Commissioner, Richard V D'Souza has issued an order to set up control rooms to register complaints against errant auto drivers in Bengaluru on a trial basis. The trial will last for two weeks starting December 6th, Monday. The order notes that the complaints against autodrivers have been on the rise and the RTOs have been unable to take action against the auto owners in several cases. In earlier cases of complaints, RTO offficials found out that the autos involved had fake registrations and hence they couldn't trace the owners. To counter this and ensure swift action, ten control…

Castle Street in the heart the city has turned into a nightmare for residents of the road. Almost four months ago, KPTCL dug up the road to lay their lines which took over a month to be completed. Contractors were hired and water and sewage lines of most of the homes on the road were damaged during the digging. Requests for the lines to be repaired fell on deaf ears and finally private plumbers were hired by most residents to repair their lines. Immediately, BBMP issued notices to the residents and in some cases threatened to take them to the…

   I got a reference to this on another mailing list, and have been singing this:http://ingeb.org/songs/daisydai.htmlThere was supposed to be a tandem initiative in Bangalore:http://www.bangaloremirror.com/index.aspx?page=article&sectid=10&contentid=20100909201009090155111273efd521dwhat happened to it? I didn't hear anything more about it.....who stocks tandems in Bangalore, and do they hire them out?How wonderful it would be if we could have someone like Chris Gerli whom I've met often in St.Louis:http://citycyclingtours.com/We could have specially painted cycles and tandems (to prevent theft, like they have in IISc...perhaps they could even have embedded chips for location?) for hire in Cubbon Park and Lalbagh; surely it would popularize cycling? ⊕

  All our IT companies spout about "corporate and social responsibiility" but don't seem to practice what they preach. Along 1st Main Road, J P Nagar 3rd Phase, all the IT companies have built offices that offer very little, or no parking. They all use the public road as a kind of free parking lot. At night, residents in this area are put to great disadvantage by all the call-centre vans and cabs parked along the road, with the drivers often ganging up to pass comments on passers-by.  Residents of the area have been complaining to the IT companies with no effect at…

"The Brigade Millennium enclave brought an impressive range of facilities within one secure, green, well-planned environment. ... The end result is a quality of life that few urban dwellers in India normally have the privilege of enjoying", so says Brigade Enterprises' website on the Brigade Millennium enclave in JP Nagar 7th Phase. Reality, however, is quite different. The main road of this enclave - Millennium Avenue - is no different from a public road - worse, in fact, with both Brigade and BBMP washing their hands off it, this has become a classic 'dhobi ka kutta'. The result - as…

Bahujana hithaaya, bahujana sukhaaya - for the good and convenience of the largest number of people, is an old maxim adopted nationally as a motto for public policy. The administrators of Namma own ooru seem to have turned this rule upside down. Consider the following examples - To ensure a "signal free" passage to those going to the new airport, the flow of  traffic  at  Mekhri circle has been changed to force buses proceeding towards Bellary Road to take a sharp U turn after passing the BDA office and the Guttahalli stop. The diversion is such that buses slow down…

The committee set up by the state government to review the zonal regulations in the Revised Master Plan (RMP- 2015), submitted their recommendations on October 15.Three committees were originally set up - one to review Bengaluru's building byelaws and two to examine the negative aspects of ZR. During the reviews it was felt that since the ZR anchor the building byelaws, it would be best if the review of these regulations were done first; then once the government decided on these recommendations, the building byelaws could be suitably amended as well. The review committee that submitted its recommendations on zoning…

I tried to balance myself very carefully as I took each step with great caution. No, I was not performing any acrobatics or balancing trick. I was just walking on a busy street in the city. I could not walk on the footpath as the slabs of the pavements were removed and piled up in a half hazard manner. Some parts of it were dug up and the remaining parts, occupied by the vendors. It was impossible to walk on the road, as the traffic was very heavy. Walking on the streets of Bangalore City is indeed a great feat.…

Between Jan 1 and Sept 4 this year, BMTC buses were involved in 81 deaths, 12 major accidents and 318 minor accidents.  Last year, the BMTC Accidents Division recorded 28 deaths, 20 major accidents and 126 minor accidents. File pic. According to the records, Yelahanka recorded the most accidents, 16, from Jan 2010 to Apr 2010. In the previous year, for the same period, it was Subhashnagar with most accidents. Records show 18 accidents. More than 3,000 buses crisscross the city out of 36 bus depots, says Nithin Hegade, a division traffic officer. 31 thousand drivers operate these buses. Hegade…