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Thursday 22 January 2015

The Impeding Punekar

The last few months have been spent whining and complaining about how atrocious the vehicular traffic has become in Pune. The sheer number of two wheelers is mind boggling. If you go to Fergusson College Road for an evening stroll on a friday, it feels claustrophobic to just walk. Same is the case for many of the other roads in the city. Im not talking of the Peth areas- they are an altogether different story, but of newly developed areas such as Kothrud, Deccan, Baner, Bavdhan, Pashan, Aundh and Hinjewadi. To add to the traffic woes, the roads are ill maintained, and causes jams. Add to that the haphazard way in which the roads are planned, and the idiotic mentality of vehicle users, a healthy mix of all ingredients for a traffic jam is created. No wonder all the roads are choked.

I do not know why 80 percent of Punekars are even allowed to drive! Seriously, these people have no regards for traffic lights, parking norms, traffic flow, lane discipline among other things- if you test them for traffic rules, most of them would fail. (incredibly, you have to pass a traffic rules test before you can get a drivers licence- they have a way around for that in form of "Agents"), Half of these uncivilized people seem to be colour blind as they clearly cannot distinguish between red and green lights- not stopping at them, honking when a red light is present etc. The remaining half are retards who just happen to have sufficient money to buy a vehicle. I mean there are more things to driving a vehicle than just starting it at making it move forward. Lane discipline for one- following speed limits the other. Less said on this, the better. The drivers licences of such idiots should be confiscated forever and, on top of that, these retards should be given life long bans from driving. If they refuse to give in even then, "gadhvavar basun dhinda kadha".

Within this group of people with special needs, there are a few with even more special needs. They are illiterates who do not know what an arrow with a cross over it means. These retards, for saving fuel worth a few paise flout all traffic norms and go wrong side. Seriously, forget a drivers license, these people do not deserve to own a vehicle. Ive started passing sarcastic comments at such "intellectually advanced" people- Call them things like Shaktimaan, Chhatrapati, followed by some kharpus insult in chaste marathi. Most of the time they do get embarrassed, We should seriously stop tolerating these idiots.

Then, leaving these idiots aside, there is another species which can only be described as super idiots. Rikshaw drivers, Taxi drivers, Bus drivers truck drivers can be included in this category. Driving a heavy trailer in the fast lane of a 60kmph highway at 20 kmph, abruptly stopping the vehicle in the middle of the road, starting a queue at any inconvinient corner, stopping 30 feet ahead of a scheduled bus stop, having unclean indicators are just some of their traits. Rikshawalahs- What can we say about them? Less said the better. They have the hand of a certain "Donkey" on their backs, which has made them extremely rude. Lets boycott them for a few days. Or lets oppose the constant fairhikes that they come up with. Let them go on strike. There is so much less traffic that way!

Sure, there are idiots and super idiots driving on the road, but then there are some others who sit in plush "municipality" offices, laying down the bluprints for "town planning", floating tenders to construct roads, constructing roads; who are capable of asking "Who's your daddy" to the aforementioned  idiots. Politicians, Contractors, town planners with absolutely no knowledge or sense of civility or being cultured- all vying for a wad of cash to fill their pockets- building public works. These morons are actually questionable. Its us who never question them for their stupidity. Pune roads are comparable to "ठिगळ लावलेले भिकार्याचे कपडे"- patchwork clothes. Its horrible. Roads are made of pavement blocks instead of tar. No proper drainage system for rainwater. relying on archaic methods, and "nako tithe doka lavna" are some of their traits. These people fail to analyze a problem. Their solution to everything is a jugaad or a temporary fix. eg- roads are relaid again and again, the basic problem of them being washed away never looked at.

Paud road is a perfect example of the genius of all the above mentioned people. Its chaotic. The only problem with it being chaotic is that it would not be if people followed simple rules, or the "municipality" corrected some of their blunders along the road. Lets have a look at whats really irritating. From chandani chowk to Paud Phata(Flyover)


1) Part 1: Chandani Chowk

(Black cross indicates jam because of people not following rules. Blue lines indicate path taken by retards to save a few bucks., orange, green, red indicates normal routes)

2) Chandani Chowk to Bhusari Colony

 
3)Bhusari Colony to Vanaz

4) Vanaz Corner


5)Ideal Colony

6) Ajantha Colony


The circle near Vanaz deserves a special mention as it is beyond all things ridiculous.  (This 4 feet high ventilation chamber needs to be demolished now!) Following is what I had to say about the issue on facebook:




"Fruits" of Sheer Stupidity- Part 1.
This Vanaz Circle on Paud Road was probably designed and created by a road building genius of the highest order. The underpass, immediately after the circle, for some strange reason has a "ventilation" system which sticks out at least 4 feet off the road like a "biased" road divider. Its not even in the middle of the road, which has resulted in narrowing of the road on one side, causing a major bottleneck for traffic going from Chandani chowk towards Nal Stop.
not that the other side is any good either since the leftmost lane is occupied by parking slots, which causes chaos at this place during peak hours.
In fact the whole of paud road was probably constructed under the leadership of this same genius and has some major technical glitches. Now Punekars will know when was the last time Paud Road had a major "facelift" - i.e. concretization- which makes it easier to predict where half of the funds may have gone and why the road is in such a sorry state.
There are many such artificial bottlenecks, all around Pune, probably created by the contractors and our netas (either to whisk of some amount of cash into his pocket or due to lack of empathy for those who actually drive or they are actually dumb and dont understand anything- for which we must thank ourselves for electing them.
I will try to highlight many such things on my blog. If i were the mayor of pune, id refuse to pay the engineer/contractor for showing lack of planning and probably sack him as well. we need to stop tolerating these things and ask the "Municipality" answers for why these things happen. Dont spare these guys now.

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It is irritating to make your way forward in this maze of idiots. Its tiring. On top of all this, there is non stop honking. Its our tolerance and tendancy to ignore these things which is giving rise to these problems. Lets take a firm stand against this stupidity. Paud Road may be one example, but this is prevalent every where. Lets end it once and for all.   Lets truly make Pune a World Class city!
(PS- Ill be sharing more of these things as and when I get time)

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