Among other news, today is the 4th of July, made famous throughout the world by Hollywood as the American Independence Day. Having spent a few of them there, I know the kind of feeling, passion, and revelry they generate, with fireworks, parties, strong words, chest thumping, and the bursting "Proud to be American" echos everywhere.
Been traveling the past week, so didn't have a lot of time to sit down and write something, but there's quite a few things I noticed around me. For one, maybe I have mentioned this already, but the Delhi metro is a wonderful system most of the time, and if it wasn't for that, it would not have been possible for me to travel from Gurgaon to Delhi to Noida and back for 4 days in a row without spending lots of money and time and doing it in the sweltering Delhi heat. I do wish DMRC is planning to expand the system, not just extending the current lines to run farther, but new lines altogether. There was an old map I had come across some years ago of an impression of DMRC's vision for the Delhi metro in 2021, and since we are 10 years away from there, there's plenty of time for the company, and a willing government, to see them in reality. I am not quite sure if I remember whether that plan had new lines, but what that plan did have was a lot of new lines that connected the existing lines at various points, thus creating numerous loops all across the city that connected each of the lines with each other at multiple places.
While technologically and planning wise this seems very good, but we must keep in mind that modern urban technologies are fairly new to our society, and it takes years of training and acquaintance for the general public to know how to use, and more importantly, understand these systems better. The big problem of civic etiquette is also something that takes a long time to build when it is not backed by strict enforcement, which is the norm almost everywhere in India.
A very simple example was when somebody I knew had to take the metro to the Delhi-Ghaziabad border. To do so, they had to hop onto the yellow line and then switch at Kashmiri Gate to the red line, but they found it very difficult to do so, and didn't sound too confident. Thus, even if all the instructions are also written in Hindi along with English, it is still very difficult for many common folk to understand instructions, or simply to navigate through the fairly confusing and bustling junctions, such as Kashmiri Gate and Connaught Place (sorry, Rajiv Chowk, renamed after Mr. Gandhi by the Congress sycophants). While the security at the Delhi Metro is fairly strong and the cops are alert and armed, they also double up as information givers, which is totally fine.
I typed a lot of things here a few minutes ago and all thanks to my awesome luck, lost it all. I was saying that I did find the map of Delhi metro grid on http://www.urbanrail.net/ as they hope will look in 2021, and it will include a new line, which is good.
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Ah the sweet anger inside me to see all those words just fade away. I'll type later now. All that I wanted to type about Reliance, Mumbai, the metros in other cities can probably wait now.
Its good to see that other cities will have metros running, but cities like Chennai and Bangalore can certainly do better than have just two lines running in them. I feel cities of their size and scope should have more lines, and just having two lines just makes it more like leaving a political landmark than anything else. Of course countless studies and forecasts are done before a decision is taken, but still, a politician can't be expected to understand most of the economics behind urban transportation. Recently, Jayalalitha was quoted as favoring the monorail in Chennai, simply because it was the DMK which pushed for the metro, and she just wanted to show that she is different. Or at least this is now the story goes.
So I was writing about how Mumbai seems to be in no hurry to get anywhere quickly at least on the infra front. It seems that decisions here take longer than anywhere else in the country, which I am assuming is mainly because its always been such an enterprising city that everybody is fighting hard to corner a piece of the pie for themselves, thus leading to delays due to more wranglings and agreements. The perenniel politician-builder nexus which everybody talks about will always remain there.
Been traveling the past week, so didn't have a lot of time to sit down and write something, but there's quite a few things I noticed around me. For one, maybe I have mentioned this already, but the Delhi metro is a wonderful system most of the time, and if it wasn't for that, it would not have been possible for me to travel from Gurgaon to Delhi to Noida and back for 4 days in a row without spending lots of money and time and doing it in the sweltering Delhi heat. I do wish DMRC is planning to expand the system, not just extending the current lines to run farther, but new lines altogether. There was an old map I had come across some years ago of an impression of DMRC's vision for the Delhi metro in 2021, and since we are 10 years away from there, there's plenty of time for the company, and a willing government, to see them in reality. I am not quite sure if I remember whether that plan had new lines, but what that plan did have was a lot of new lines that connected the existing lines at various points, thus creating numerous loops all across the city that connected each of the lines with each other at multiple places.
While technologically and planning wise this seems very good, but we must keep in mind that modern urban technologies are fairly new to our society, and it takes years of training and acquaintance for the general public to know how to use, and more importantly, understand these systems better. The big problem of civic etiquette is also something that takes a long time to build when it is not backed by strict enforcement, which is the norm almost everywhere in India.
A very simple example was when somebody I knew had to take the metro to the Delhi-Ghaziabad border. To do so, they had to hop onto the yellow line and then switch at Kashmiri Gate to the red line, but they found it very difficult to do so, and didn't sound too confident. Thus, even if all the instructions are also written in Hindi along with English, it is still very difficult for many common folk to understand instructions, or simply to navigate through the fairly confusing and bustling junctions, such as Kashmiri Gate and Connaught Place (sorry, Rajiv Chowk, renamed after Mr. Gandhi by the Congress sycophants). While the security at the Delhi Metro is fairly strong and the cops are alert and armed, they also double up as information givers, which is totally fine.
I typed a lot of things here a few minutes ago and all thanks to my awesome luck, lost it all. I was saying that I did find the map of Delhi metro grid on http://www.urbanrail.net/ as they hope will look in 2021, and it will include a new line, which is good.
Ah the sweet anger inside me to see all those words just fade away. I'll type later now. All that I wanted to type about Reliance, Mumbai, the metros in other cities can probably wait now.
Its good to see that other cities will have metros running, but cities like Chennai and Bangalore can certainly do better than have just two lines running in them. I feel cities of their size and scope should have more lines, and just having two lines just makes it more like leaving a political landmark than anything else. Of course countless studies and forecasts are done before a decision is taken, but still, a politician can't be expected to understand most of the economics behind urban transportation. Recently, Jayalalitha was quoted as favoring the monorail in Chennai, simply because it was the DMK which pushed for the metro, and she just wanted to show that she is different. Or at least this is now the story goes.
So I was writing about how Mumbai seems to be in no hurry to get anywhere quickly at least on the infra front. It seems that decisions here take longer than anywhere else in the country, which I am assuming is mainly because its always been such an enterprising city that everybody is fighting hard to corner a piece of the pie for themselves, thus leading to delays due to more wranglings and agreements. The perenniel politician-builder nexus which everybody talks about will always remain there.
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