COMMENTS

Refer to the strategic principle.

Question is: Do you believe the strategic principle will make a difference to your lives?

If yes then: Does our transport infrastructure of today in Bangalore, like roads, signages, markings, footpaths, crosswalks, bus stop information, timetables etc provide clarity to the user in their usage so they dont make mistakes?

Following that: Do you believe this is a good guiding principle to be adopted by our administrators in building our cities and what do you think its impact will be?

Do let me know your views

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I think by & large, there is recognition by all that risks, vulnerabilities & hazards need to be minimized, if not removed entirely from our streets. However, the explanation for the very poor quality & maintainence of roads & transport infrastructure, not to mention the very large number of accidents & road casualties involves two general issues :

1) Bangalore (& all Indian metropolises) have populations nearly equal to or larger than whole nations such as sweden, denmark or norway.

2) Socio-economic backwardness of peoples is a major obstacle to education & hence, improvement of discipline & inculcation of better ethical standards.

Thus, since costs are tightly controlled & contractors do not flich at cheating or paying bribes, the quality of signages provided tends to be poor, except on a few, better streets. Many a times, these are damaged or defaced by vandals. Paints used for street markings are of low quality & do not last more than a few months since streets are overloaded well beyond limits - thus, the repainting exercise is all too frequent.

Even if properly allocated /marked sidewalks or crosswalks are provided, they do not seem to have much effect or significance since pedestrians anyway cross any place. Sidewalks are regularly misused by motorists for escaping out from traffic jams or for parking (most common). Hawkers & shop-keepers eye such sidewalks too for displaying their wares.

On the road, frequent & unsafe inter-changing of traffic lanes is all too common, despite the risks.

Better bus stop information & timetables may help, but discipline has to be all-around :  commuters must stay within them & not wait out on the street/s, buses must stop only at these designated points, other vehicles such as autos & cars must not obstruct bus entry & exit/s - a ploiceman must not be required to enforce these.

In my opinion, unless the volume of traffic is drastically reduced, management will continue to be similar to fire-fighting & the erosion of standards will continue & deteriorate further. Advances can only be made if traffic volumes are reduced since it will provide some breathing space to plan & execute /enforce certain measures, but I am not sure we will ever have such an opportunity anytime in the future.

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The Middle-East found new wealth & sufficiency in every area when huge deposits of oil were discovered decades ago. However, though they have created vast road /transport infrastructure that are now abundant & in fact over-supplied, the thought processes of the average individual is generally behind expectations.

This again, is perhaps explained by lack of thrust on educative /scientific trends. Self sufficiency & availability of resources is not enough - educating the individual is just as, if not more important.

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But the points are stating a part of the problem. 

have populations nearly equal to or larger than whole nations

How does a designer take this into account? Does this mean the principle is less valid?

 Socio-economic backwardness of peoples is a major obstacle to education & hence,

Does socio economic backwardness also mean inability to understand communication? Then we are not communicating effectively. If I remember the notes from the CiSTUP visit there is an effort to develop signage that is neutral to language and socio economic status. This will be a worth while solution IMO.

Advances can only be made if traffic volumes are reduced

Does that change the guiding principle? What is an ideal vehicle population for 15mil people by 2050? 

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This is the way to go since board room conclaves and bright ideas from bright minds will not be understood by the simple road user. What are his immediate simple needs have to be understood, find variables to ease the tension he is undergoing, look at the contents and deliver the contents to his satisfaction because while giving you the problems, he has also hinted at solutions.

Look back - some of the old problems are solutions of today and tomorrow.

It is time to look at problems not as complicated issues but as deliverable solutions.

- Vasanth Mysoremath

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