As soon as you step down from the train in vadodara, you find that the station is comparatively neat and clean. And there are lesser people on the station.
Step out from the station and you find an auto charging you only 25/- rs to take you home. Well, you think, in delhi, the autowala wont even look at me if i say 25/- rs to him.
The distance from station to home is almost traffic free - even during the peak hours. In fact, no one has heard of even a 10 minute traffic jam. There are no traffic jams. Wow you say. You roam around and you find that reaching any place in baroda is not a big job. Nothing is too far off. If you travel for an hour you can cover almost the whole of baroda. You save all the travel time. Going to nearby grocery store is 5 min job. Going to the nearby mall is 10 min job and going to the nearby movie hall is 15 min job and going to the nearby maruti service station is a 2 minute job. Your gym is nearby. And you also have a big swimming pool 5 minutes away. Much cleaner than those in delhi.
So what you would say. Delhi has big malls and reliance fresh, pvr. What? Havnt you heard about the pvr and inox in baroda. Or adlabs. They are all here. There are huge shopping malls here too. And you have the street market too which is damn cheap. In fact you would be shocked to see that the shopping malls in baroda provide such discounts that the price comes down to that of the street markets of delhi. Cool and most of the products are branded.
So, you save on your travelling time. The people are friendly - cause they have time. You get up at 8:30 and leave for office at 9:30 And you are in office by 9:45. There is no rush. For the price of a 2 bed room flat in remote location in delhi, you would get a 4 bedroom tennament with private lawn and parking in the best locality in baroda.
You leave office at 6:15 and are home by max 6:30. You have time to talk to your friends and relatives. You make social visits. If you fill up 1000/- worth of petrol in your car and use your car daily, your petrol would last for the whole of the month. Wow - great savings on petrol. There is traffic police in almost all the places. And if you talk to them, you would find that they are friendlier and a lot less corrupt. They would give you a receipt for a fine you pay. And they do not demand a bribe.
Then why am i in delhi? Cause i get paid well there. Well, maybe i could move to baroda if i get paid half of what i am getting paid in delhi.
Showing posts with label infrastructure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label infrastructure. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Monday, August 27, 2007
The killer blue line buses in delhi
The blue line buses are everywhere. And from the everyday news, it seems that they are killing people on the fly. Crushing a pedestrian, or a cyclist or a motorcycle rider.
Some days back, i had the option of riding one of the buses. And i realized some things which though i had noticed earlier - but it did not strike me.
The problem - to me seems like more of an infrastructure & mindset problem than that of blue line buses. People in delhi think that they are invincible. They have the mindset that i am the king of the road and no one else could do anything to me. Instead of thinking about the situation as a whole, they would prefer to be at the top of it.
So what happens is firstly, there are no footpaths and pedestrians are forced to walk on the road. Earlier people used to walk at the end of the road, but now-a-days, people tend to walk more to the center of the road and since the number of vehicles are ever increasing in delhi and the roads always remain of the same width, people tend to drive more towards the end of the road. And lo, you have people being overtaken by honking cars and buses. And the people who dont look behind when they walk become the victims. If we would have had proper footpaths and pedestrian crossings then i think, the situation would have been much better.
To add to the ever increasing traffic and the narrow roads, now comes the Delhi-Metro, the construction of which makes the road even narrower - so narrow that sometimes it is even difficult for a single bus to pass through it. Of course - this would cause jams and increase the frustration level in the daily commuters.
The attitude of bikers and cyclists are even peculiar. Bikers tend to overtake you from the left - always. And they would zoom between buses and cars. All ads about zippy 150 cc bikes also show the same. I also confess that sometimes i would also zoom between cars, but ofcourse taking every precaution. But there are people who would like to squeeze in between cars and buses and zoom ahead. These are the people who neither care for their life nor for the life of others.
Recently i had an incident where an uncle on a scooter zoomed past the back of my car - collided with the back of my car and fell - in-spite of my constant honking. If he would have waited for 2 minutes or would have kept a bigger distance between my car and his scooter while zooming, he might have saved himself a fall and saved me another scratch on my car.
The problem to me seems that everyone is in a hurry to reach his destination. And the narrow roads and traffic jams, dont help a bit causing people to move ahead where ever they see a possibility. No one drives in a proper lane. Lane changing is very common. The only aim is to move ahead.
The bus i sat in a few days ago, was trying its best to avoid pedestrians and cyclists honking now and then to make space for it to move ahead. And still he had to brake hard for a hero on the motorcycle cause the hero overtook from the left and zoomed ahead from a very narrow space between the bus and some cyclists.
It is not the blue line buses which should be called "killer". It is the government and the infrastructure which should be called "killer". The government has given us smooth roads but the roads are too narrow for the kind of traffic delhi has. The government has not planned proper footpaths & pedestrian crossings. No one believes in staying in the same lane while driving.
No matter what you do, the autos always overcharge. They ask for thrice the fare and settle for double fare. And they deny driving to the destination, if they dont get at-least twice the fare. And this again adds to the delay in reaching one's destination. And frustration level keeps on increasing among commuters.
It looks more like a chaos...
Some days back, i had the option of riding one of the buses. And i realized some things which though i had noticed earlier - but it did not strike me.
The problem - to me seems like more of an infrastructure & mindset problem than that of blue line buses. People in delhi think that they are invincible. They have the mindset that i am the king of the road and no one else could do anything to me. Instead of thinking about the situation as a whole, they would prefer to be at the top of it.
So what happens is firstly, there are no footpaths and pedestrians are forced to walk on the road. Earlier people used to walk at the end of the road, but now-a-days, people tend to walk more to the center of the road and since the number of vehicles are ever increasing in delhi and the roads always remain of the same width, people tend to drive more towards the end of the road. And lo, you have people being overtaken by honking cars and buses. And the people who dont look behind when they walk become the victims. If we would have had proper footpaths and pedestrian crossings then i think, the situation would have been much better.
To add to the ever increasing traffic and the narrow roads, now comes the Delhi-Metro, the construction of which makes the road even narrower - so narrow that sometimes it is even difficult for a single bus to pass through it. Of course - this would cause jams and increase the frustration level in the daily commuters.
The attitude of bikers and cyclists are even peculiar. Bikers tend to overtake you from the left - always. And they would zoom between buses and cars. All ads about zippy 150 cc bikes also show the same. I also confess that sometimes i would also zoom between cars, but ofcourse taking every precaution. But there are people who would like to squeeze in between cars and buses and zoom ahead. These are the people who neither care for their life nor for the life of others.
Recently i had an incident where an uncle on a scooter zoomed past the back of my car - collided with the back of my car and fell - in-spite of my constant honking. If he would have waited for 2 minutes or would have kept a bigger distance between my car and his scooter while zooming, he might have saved himself a fall and saved me another scratch on my car.
The problem to me seems that everyone is in a hurry to reach his destination. And the narrow roads and traffic jams, dont help a bit causing people to move ahead where ever they see a possibility. No one drives in a proper lane. Lane changing is very common. The only aim is to move ahead.
The bus i sat in a few days ago, was trying its best to avoid pedestrians and cyclists honking now and then to make space for it to move ahead. And still he had to brake hard for a hero on the motorcycle cause the hero overtook from the left and zoomed ahead from a very narrow space between the bus and some cyclists.
It is not the blue line buses which should be called "killer". It is the government and the infrastructure which should be called "killer". The government has given us smooth roads but the roads are too narrow for the kind of traffic delhi has. The government has not planned proper footpaths & pedestrian crossings. No one believes in staying in the same lane while driving.
No matter what you do, the autos always overcharge. They ask for thrice the fare and settle for double fare. And they deny driving to the destination, if they dont get at-least twice the fare. And this again adds to the delay in reaching one's destination. And frustration level keeps on increasing among commuters.
It looks more like a chaos...
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