Traffic paranoia in Delhi... (11th Sept.'09)

Whew! What happened? This Thursday (10th Sept.) evening, going back from office, I was able to just zip through the roads in the heart of South Delhi, to cover the 34 odd kms to my home in Gurgaon in just under an hour! Unprecedented!

Initially, I thought it was because I started a bit late. It was already 6.30 by the time I finished whatever it was that I was doing in office. Having resigned myself to the usual killing traffic which I was destined to encounter at that hour, I took my own time getting out. I even browsed through the company notice board while going out, something I hadn't done in months! I gently eased my car into the traffic from under the Modi Mill flyover and... whoa! what was this? An almost empty Kalkaji mandir flyover greeted me. Usually, I can see vehicles strung out jostling on that bridge, looking none less than the Queen's Necklace of Bombay.

So I thanked my stars at having found what I thought was a 'gap' in the traffic (from Noida, Faridabad,...) coming down the Modi Mill flyover, and reached the Nehru Place flyover in record time, all the time dreading the prospect of the usual jam at the next turn. The usually sparse traffic at N.P. bridge was no surprise,but... even near C.R. Park/Pamposh Enclave there was no traffice to speak of. Rounding the Greater Kailash flyover and on to the Chirag Delhi one, I felt blessed. This was the very spot, at the foot of the Chirag bridge, where a few meters of waterlogging the previous day and caused a traffic jam right back up to Nehru Place, causing me to cover the princely distance of 5 kms. from my office to Panchsheel in an hour.

Continuing past Panchsheel at the same pace, it all finally began to sink in. What could've happened (purely my reading) is that having burnt their fingers (and much else) the previous day in traffic, many (most?) Delhites on that route had chosen to make an 'early run' and cross much of the potentially 'dangerous' road space in good time. OR was it that the 3-hour long traffic jam on the same (and surrounding) roads of South Delhi the same morning had caused many to 'miss' their office (I know, for instance, that one of my friends heard about the jams from morning TV news and decided to give his office a miss - understandable, given that he hass to travel from Gurgoan to Noida every day, a distance of 45 kms.!)?

So that's the extent of road paranoia, if I may call it that, that pervades the heart of every Delhite (and NCR-ite!). We dread running into traffic, some of us take loooonnng detours just to avoid heavy traffic, we avoid going to places where we are not likely to find parking space (I've myself once long back gone from my home in GK-II to nearby Lajpat Nagar, taking 45 mins. to do that, then circled around the place a few time, not finding parking space, coming back home - and that was about 9 years back!), even changing our schedules (including birthday/anniversary celebrations!) to suit the traffic.

A large part of the reason for the traffic mess in which we find ourselves is all kinds of construction (Metro, flyovers, 'beautifications' - road medians dug up & the loose earth & to-be-installed light-poles dumped on the road alongside, a normal sight all over South Delhi) currently going on, some (e.g. the sewerage work from NH-8 all the way to Najafgarh) beautifully timed to coincide with the rains, thus ensuring that the dug up roads are not filled up and metalled again for months. That the bigger problem is the unsustainable rise in the city's vehicle population, some may say stoked by the vehicle financing boom over the last decade, is another story, fit for a different forum.

Next morning (i.e. Friday 11th, yeah, anniversary of the famour nine-eleven), I was rudely jolted out of my reverie by a (usual?) traffic jam near Kalkaji mandir, where it took me an hour and a quarter to cover the distance of the last 1 kilometre to my office (the same time it had taken me to cover the other 33!). Welcome to Delhi!

When will I get back my Delhi? (29th July'09)

I lived the first 35 years of my life in Delhi. It's only in the last few years that work (mostly) has taken me outside, to Gurgaon in NCR. I remember the time when I used to drive on a mobike on the long and wide roads of Delhi. Admittedly, I don't get to do that very often these days and, when I drive/am driven, it's mostly confined to South Delhi where my workplace and most of my relatives are.

So it was quite a disappointment when, on a recent trip back from out of town, our taxi took us through the once enchanting Delhi roads to meet... a roadblock at every step. Literally. All this beautification and metro-isation and road-widening and flyover-ing is alright, but my heart weeps when I see what all this has reduced the famed Delhi roads to. More than the minor irritation of having to take a detour, it is the disfiguration of and encroachment on the famed vistas and roundabouts and (in some cases) green spaces, even if temporary, that is disheartening.

Most of this is being done in the name of Commonwealth Games 2010. There is a minor question of whether all these big projects, started almost at the last minute possible, will reach their fruition before the commencement of the Games. The big ones like the airport and most of the Metro, yes, but what about all the flyovers? All the road beautification and widening? And firstly, was all this absolutely essential? So much essential as to put the bulk of Delhites through an extended period of hellish living, more so in the rainy season?

I'd give an example of the strange timing of certain works. There was a stretch of tree lined road along a row of farmhouses which connects National Hightway 8 (Gurgaon expressway) to the old Delhi-Gurgaon road at a place in South West Delhi called 'Kapas Hera'. The sewer line work on this stretch was taken up only a few months back, blocking the whole road and leading to detours. But more importantly, the work has been over for more than a month (well before the rainy season) but nobody bothered to resurface the road. With the result that the road has now been converted to a mini-canal!

Not only that, the sewer work was then extended across the traffic square towards Najafgarh, and this extentsion was started within the last month, coinciding with the rainy season - talk about timing! Now one half of this road was dug up and the sewer line put in. And what happened next was quite predictable. With the first rains, the layer of earth put on top of the sewer line just caved in at places one fine day. Only a couple of days back (after the rains returned with full fury), you could see a 3-wheeler goods carrier lying in one portion of the caved in road/earth at a queer angle. And I hope this doesn't happen to a truck or a bus some day.

So my question to all the concerned Govt. & other agencies, as a Delhite (which I consider myself to be, even if I only have an office & not a home in Delhi but in NCR), is: When will you give me back my Delhi?