The Hindu : Metro Plus Bangalore : Sixty and she's still vrooming
Gotta do this someday. hopefully before I'm sixty. Salute, Linda!
Ride on, ride on
Potholesome development
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4715470.stm
The fact that there's fine print to trap eager participants is shameful, in the context of the 'contest'. If you're posing such a challenge, you must be able able to say 'show me *one* pothole in Bangalore and I'll give you a 1000 bucks' - or just shut up and work.
The positive from this is probably more citizen participation, ending of course in more citizen cynicism and despair, and hopefully more citizen anger.
This sucks.
HDK >>> HDDG? Governance capability
The new CM - HD Kumaraswamy is making all the right noises in the media for now - and Bangalore's dying to latch on to even raw hope (laced, I must add, with generous doses of cynicism).
The thing is, I do not believe the babudom which thwarted Krishna, and revelled under Dharam and Siddu, is likely to let things happen. And not just the Bangalore babudom.
case in point:
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=87763
L&T have proven themselves earlier. Why not give them a lion's share of the work and maybe even overall supervisory control. I think they were key to the Konkan railways too.
Even from a lay person's point of view, there's too much lack of vision/capability/knowledge. Neither short term execution skills, nor long term planning is discernible.
Examples:
Majestic/Railway Station/New Offices on MGRoad:
Bangalore seems to be restricted to a 5 km sq in the 'heart' of the city - and I've been hearing the 'growing too fast' for 10 years now!
Why do long distances buses - 100s and 100s of them, drive right through the city everyday ? Surely these can start at the city periphery and reduce hazaar traffic in town ?
Why is the railway station again the only one - Cantonment is still a joke and there's nothing around the 'suburbs'. Tried boarding/alighting at KR Puram ?
A lot of the city is linked by rails - add a little more and u have a railway system ready ? Why dig the whole place up for the metro or waste colossal amounts on monorails etc ?
Why is new construction still permitted in the CBD ? Does it make sense to have more and more offices there ? On a related note, why have traffic cut through Brigade road, Comm street ? They're readymade "malls" if one just paves them, covers them with FRP sheets, and throws in a couple of pavement restaurants, live bands (Chandigarh sector 17, not some distant populationless land being my inspiration).
Why have traffic in the CBD at all ? Have huge lots around it, and FREE/CHEAP electric buses running along circular routes.
The malls: U go and spend hours there. They create tons of traffic, esp once the multiplexes start attracting crowds. Why are these in the heart of the city ?
Hospitals : The already choked, dusty Bannerghata road has just been blessed with 2 humongous ones - Wockhardt and Imperial (bought by Apollo).
a) theres always the traffic issue
b) is there suffficient electrcity supplied from multiple phases ?
c) what about sewage disposal - surely hospitals that big need a special focus on that, for both solid as well as potentially toxic liquid waste ?
The ORR offices:
a) Why isn't the service road done yet ?
b) Why are trucks allowed, sorry, encouraged to park in one lane and effectively block another trying to do this ?
c) Why do most establishments *face* the main road and not an internal access road ?
Generally:
Can not the Hosur and a few other roads be made into limited access high speed arteries with clean well defined points to enter/exit them at 2/3 places in the city max, NO bus stops, NO shops facing them (so nobody's encouraged to just pick up in a min - "doesn't matter"). Have the hospitals in large spaces along these arteries around the periphery of the city - so ppl can get there in 25-20 mins max - and then have the malls well outside. U go there to spend a few hrs anyhow - whats a 15 min drive ? In fact it might be quicker if its a free flowing road!
The thing is, I do not believe the babudom which thwarted Krishna, and revelled under Dharam and Siddu, is likely to let things happen. And not just the Bangalore babudom.
case in point:
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=87763
L&T have proven themselves earlier. Why not give them a lion's share of the work and maybe even overall supervisory control. I think they were key to the Konkan railways too.
Even from a lay person's point of view, there's too much lack of vision/capability/knowledge. Neither short term execution skills, nor long term planning is discernible.
Examples:
Majestic/Railway Station/New Offices on MGRoad:
Bangalore seems to be restricted to a 5 km sq in the 'heart' of the city - and I've been hearing the 'growing too fast' for 10 years now!
Why do long distances buses - 100s and 100s of them, drive right through the city everyday ? Surely these can start at the city periphery and reduce hazaar traffic in town ?
Why is the railway station again the only one - Cantonment is still a joke and there's nothing around the 'suburbs'. Tried boarding/alighting at KR Puram ?
A lot of the city is linked by rails - add a little more and u have a railway system ready ? Why dig the whole place up for the metro or waste colossal amounts on monorails etc ?
Why is new construction still permitted in the CBD ? Does it make sense to have more and more offices there ? On a related note, why have traffic cut through Brigade road, Comm street ? They're readymade "malls" if one just paves them, covers them with FRP sheets, and throws in a couple of pavement restaurants, live bands (Chandigarh sector 17, not some distant populationless land being my inspiration).
Why have traffic in the CBD at all ? Have huge lots around it, and FREE/CHEAP electric buses running along circular routes.
The malls: U go and spend hours there. They create tons of traffic, esp once the multiplexes start attracting crowds. Why are these in the heart of the city ?
Hospitals : The already choked, dusty Bannerghata road has just been blessed with 2 humongous ones - Wockhardt and Imperial (bought by Apollo).
a) theres always the traffic issue
b) is there suffficient electrcity supplied from multiple phases ?
c) what about sewage disposal - surely hospitals that big need a special focus on that, for both solid as well as potentially toxic liquid waste ?
The ORR offices:
a) Why isn't the service road done yet ?
b) Why are trucks allowed, sorry, encouraged to park in one lane and effectively block another trying to do this ?
c) Why do most establishments *face* the main road and not an internal access road ?
Generally:
Can not the Hosur and a few other roads be made into limited access high speed arteries with clean well defined points to enter/exit them at 2/3 places in the city max, NO bus stops, NO shops facing them (so nobody's encouraged to just pick up
Traffic woes: Siemens not to expand in B'lore
Traffic woes: Siemens not to expand in B'lore
This is the second or third news article about companies deciding to ship out or grow elsewhere. And its not JUST infrastructure alone - Bangalore is crazily expensive in terms of acomodation, as well as salaries.
Are we shooting ourselves in the foot ? This is both for the city administration as well the software crowd, who're causing spiralling salaries, real estate costs and a lot else. Some sanity by way of a little bit of a real estate correction, salary hike slowdown etc needs to happen to restore sanity and give Bangalore a fighting chance.
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