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MehtaRahulC
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Infrastructure News and Discussion

Post by MehtaRahulC » Sat Oct 21, 2017 4:51 pm

The best way to judge human-ness of leaders / activists of a nation is too see how easy / difficult / safe / unsafe it is for pedestrians to walk on footpaths or cross roads.
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And pls compare any city of India, be Delhi or Mumbai or Ahmedabad with New York or any city in USA, Canada, AU , UK etc
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Forget old parts --- even footpaths made after year 1960 or made after 1980 or made after year 2000 are shabby at best. In many cities, whole new areas were farm before year 2000, and are now urban. And even there , town planning is so poor that walking on footpaths is difficult. And crossing street / road increases BP and heartbeats.
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The mess is due to corruption in leaders across all parties , and corruption in IAS. But all that has been discussed to death,
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So what laws or other initiatives do we need to make footpaths, road crossing, inner roads etc of Indian cities at least as good NYC? or better?

shiv
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Re: Improving footpaths, streets and city roads

Post by shiv » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:44 am

Hello Rahul Mehtaji. I may regret this post, but nevertheless it is an issue that concerns me.
1. There are areas in US cities that have no footpaths because everyone uses cars
2. In Bengaluru selected roads are gradually being subjected to what is called as TenderSure. What is done is to map and identify all power and water and sewage lines under each targeted road, move them all to the side with access under a footpath and then lay the road - often with white topping. The foortapth itself is made walkable and broad with pillars to stop motorcyclists from riding on footpaths. Bangalore police have also been doing a good job in this regard.
3. Footpath vendors are a problem. In Bengaluru a vendor on the road can be sent away by the police. If the same vendor gets on the footpath - the police have no jurisdiction and the city corporation is responsible. The city corporation is of course corrupt to the core
4. I think dealing with corruption and roads are two separate but interlinked issues. I believe that corporation officials and city corporation bodies must have no political affiliation. They should not be BJP or AAP or Congress. Much of the money skimming in cities arises from roads and garbage.

Typically roads are nowadays resurfaced by machine. Those machines are owned by private contractors who are awarded government contracts. There are certain standards that need to be followed. For example the resurfacing needs to be a minimum thickness and that thickness can only be ensured by honest work and by burring out a core cylinder of road surface to check. Typically a road that needs to have a 10 cm (4 inch) thick resurfacing gets only a 2 inch coat. After repair it looks beautiful and the contractor and the government official share the 50% money savings from 50% road thickness. But the road simply gives way the next monsoon and the weather is blamed.

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Re: Improving footpaths, streets and city roads

Post by Zynda » Mon Oct 23, 2017 2:02 pm

I think the 11th Main Road in Jayanagar is supposed to be TenderSUREd (was announced some time like 2 years ago), but so far the progress & outcome has been disappointing. Actually, I don't think any work is happening currently. AFAIK, only one side of the footpath and that too perhaps 1/3rd has been remodelled based on TenderSURE and the finish is a far cry from what we see in CBD. But thankfully it is functional if one is careful...avoid pile of mud thrown on foot path along with several open patches and parked two wheelers.

MehtaRahulC
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Re: Improving footpaths, streets and city roads

Post by MehtaRahulC » Thu Nov 30, 2017 4:52 pm

from GST thread,
SRoy wrote:
Thu Nov 30, 2017 6:18 am
Rahul Mehta Ji,

I would personally not like to pay a single penny extra over my regular taxes for road use and continue to drive my car. If it sounds selfish let it be.

The reason? Vehicular traffic is one aspect of road. The government having taken the tax monies of mine, my father's and my grandfather's have not shown even a minuscule intent to make the road usable for me. I can't walk on the sidewalks, because it has been encroached upon. By whom? By those that don't pay taxes. Hawkers spill over on main carriage way? They are again non-tax payers.

My vehicle undergoes unnatural wear and tear and yet the government misuses my tax monies to do a hogwash of repair by awarding the job to shoddy contractors, the repair which washes away with first shower. Are you done with your fake concern for pedestrian? Show me your DRAFT to evict encroachments and to ban of roadside hawking. Be done with that. Pedestrians will have lot of space for themselves.
The drafts I have proposed to end hawking is Right to Recall Mayor, Jury Trial over Hawkers, and Jury Trial over Municipal Staff
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That will be sufficient, unless Lower Court judges or High Court judges and Supreme judges start throwing stay orders. In that case, RTR over them will be needed.
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And even after hawking and encroachment ends, the problem of footpath widening remains. In most places in Indian cities, number of pendestarisns per km are more than NYC and yet footpath width is less. And zebra crossings are non existent. And sometimes one has to walk for 500 meters to come to a zebra crossing !! (in NYC , block size is 100 m * 250 m on an average, so on an average, one has to walk only 125 m or less to cross road). Most cities in India dont have "no turn left on red" while most cities in USA have "no turn turn on red" (which is same as "no turn left turn on red" wrt to India). And THERE ARE NO STOP SIGNS ON NON-SIGNAL CROSS ROADS IN INDIA (at least, none ahmedabad, where I live) !!! And many many signals dont have "walk / dont walk" signs for pedestrians.
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So tons of money is needed to widen and improve footpaths and do substancial changes in street layouts to make streets and footpaths of Indian cities as pedestrian friendly as NYC. And all that money better come from vehicle-owners pockets and nowhere else.

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Re: Infrastructure News and Discussion

Post by Muns » Wed Aug 21, 2019 6:17 am

Decided to name this thread as the infrastructure thread. It has started off as improvement in roads as well as footpaths but feel that all infrastructure related news can be posted here.

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Re: Infrastructure News and Discussion

Post by Muns » Thu Aug 22, 2019 3:24 am

Karnataka emerges as best state for roof top solar in India

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/ne ... 204906.ece
Karnataka has emerged as the best state for setting up a roof top solar project according to the State Rooftop Solar Attractiveness Index–SARAL released by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. Telangana, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh come next in the rankings but all four have been graded A++.

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Re: Infrastructure News and Discussion

Post by Muns » Thu Aug 22, 2019 3:27 am

Kolkata to get country's first underwater Metro Rail service

https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-k ... ce-2783839
Two tunnels of 520 metres are constructed under the mighty river to connect the twin cities. Metro trains are expected to run at the speed of 80 km/hr through these tunnels. Engineers have claimed that there will be no issue of leakage as the tunnel below the river bed is passing through very hard soil. The tunnel has been made in accordance with seismic zone 4 norms; thus, no effect of the earthquake will be felt in case of one. "This is India's first underwater river tunnel. A lot of things had to be kept in mind to build it — that includes immense pressure of water in Ganga,' said Biswanath Dewanji, chief engineer of Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation.

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