Crumbling Bangalore
The way I see it, Bangalore has lost a good deal of its shine in the last few years. What's troubling is that there seems to be no end in sight for Bangalore's crumbling infrastructure.
Like a punch in the eye, Bangalore's woes struck me as even more glaring after a recent visit to Delhi. For a city that once had the foulest air and congested streets, Delhi has undergone a remarkable transformation. Glittering new flyovers, green belts, CNG vehicles, and divided roads are hard to miss.
I was in Delhi in 2003 and the Metro work was in full swing. Just three years later, the Metro is up and running and the entire area looks clean, organized, and vibrant. Compare this with Banaglore's 12-km stretch of NH-7 (Bellary Road): The road widening project that started over three years ago is still far from completion.
Not only are Bangalore's solutions to its traffic ills proving to be ineffective, they also smack of advanced senility. "Make it a One-Way Road" seems to be the popular mantra of the Bangalore authorities. Another popular strategy: "Let's sprinkle a few spead breakers all over so that the already slow-moving traffic becomes a crawl." I was apalled to see the sudden appearance of spead breakers on NH-7 the other day. Speed breakers on a 6-lane national highway!! Clearly, someone forgot to tell these road engineers that the sole purpose of highways is to make it easy for people to go from Place A to Place B in the SHORTEST possible time. What's worse is that no one has bothered to paint these speed-breakers or install any warning signs.
A word of unsolicited advice for the city planners who nurse this vision of modeling Bangalore after Singapore: "Forget Singapore, and start looking at Delhi. If you can achieve even half of what Delhi has done, Bangalore will be well on its way to recovery."
Like a punch in the eye, Bangalore's woes struck me as even more glaring after a recent visit to Delhi. For a city that once had the foulest air and congested streets, Delhi has undergone a remarkable transformation. Glittering new flyovers, green belts, CNG vehicles, and divided roads are hard to miss.
I was in Delhi in 2003 and the Metro work was in full swing. Just three years later, the Metro is up and running and the entire area looks clean, organized, and vibrant. Compare this with Banaglore's 12-km stretch of NH-7 (Bellary Road): The road widening project that started over three years ago is still far from completion.
Not only are Bangalore's solutions to its traffic ills proving to be ineffective, they also smack of advanced senility. "Make it a One-Way Road" seems to be the popular mantra of the Bangalore authorities. Another popular strategy: "Let's sprinkle a few spead breakers all over so that the already slow-moving traffic becomes a crawl." I was apalled to see the sudden appearance of spead breakers on NH-7 the other day. Speed breakers on a 6-lane national highway!! Clearly, someone forgot to tell these road engineers that the sole purpose of highways is to make it easy for people to go from Place A to Place B in the SHORTEST possible time. What's worse is that no one has bothered to paint these speed-breakers or install any warning signs.
A word of unsolicited advice for the city planners who nurse this vision of modeling Bangalore after Singapore: "Forget Singapore, and start looking at Delhi. If you can achieve even half of what Delhi has done, Bangalore will be well on its way to recovery."
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