Indian Roads Thread

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KLP Dubey
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by KLP Dubey »

Singha wrote:one dark rainy night, we were in a taxi from kochi airport to kumarakom. there are two parallel NHs passing on the western side of the lake I think. I thought they were both town level interior roads until I checked the map later!
AFAIK there is only one NH in the Vembanad lake area, which is NH-47. The other one must be a local route.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Sachin »

Bade wrote:NHAI is on record saying that KL land values make it economically unfeasible to build there. There must be some truth to it.
I read about KL government finally agreeing for NH at 45 metres. From what I could understand NHAI has clearly stated that it requires help from State government by either doling out part of the costs, or help it in land acquisition. Correct me if I am wrong here. The railways too seems to be putting up the same demand with Kerala. Pay up part of the costs of such big projects (roads, railway expansion) and then we can think of joint working. Days of throwing fists up in the air (the other hand holding a flag), and "demanding" some one else to do some thing seems to be getting a bit old fashioned in Kerala these days ;) 8).
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by vipins »

Akhilesh Yadav government signs pact for India's longest six lane access controlled expressway
Talking about the project, Navneet Sehgal said that the 302 km long Lucknow to Agra Expressway would be the country longest access controlled six lane expressway.
The six lane expressway would be 110 meters wide and would cut down travel time from Lucknow to Agra from existing eight hours to less than four hours.

Interestingly the expressway would pass through the Yadav fiefdom of Etawah, Mainpuri and Kannauj and also link the industrial town of Kanpur.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by member_28714 »

Reagarding chandy proimising 45 meters of NH land .... Fell off the chair :rotfl:

The ones hopeful of this happening must not know Gods own Kaliphate well enough.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Bade »

Two decades on, land acquired for NH development remains untouched
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Koc ... 543608.ece
He said NH 17 is hardly six-metres wide in places such as Vadakkekara, while land acquired at 30-metre width is lying idle and weed- infested. “Both land owners and commuters are angry at the state of affairs.”
Biggest challenge

Sources in PWD said land acquisition was the biggest challenge since only eight hectares of land was acquired in NH 47 and NH 17 during the past 13 years. “The government says the total compensation to land owners would be Rs. 13,500 crore (at the average rate of Rs.4 lakh per cent). But this would scale up to well over Rs. 50,000 crore since the market rate for most plots facing NHs ranges from between Rs. 10 lakh to Rs. 1 crore. It is doubtful whether NHAI would pay this since State government is hard-pressed for funds.”

Rather than waste time on the project, priority must be given to widen Cherthala-Kazhakoottam reach of NH 47 and also Edappally-Kuttipuram reach of NH 17 into four lane. Land acquired at 30-metre-width over two decades ago was lying idle in these busy but narrow and highly-accident-prone stretches, they said. Other highway corridors can be developed at 30 or 45-metre width, depending on the availability of land. Already, the 270-km NH 47 stretch from Edappally to Walayar is being developed at 45-metre width.
Elevated highway

A senior PWD official suggested construction of an elevated 4-lane corridor on a BOT basis in the next stage of development in 30-metre highways. This would cost approximately Rs. 150 crore under current estimates and can be realized through user fee.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by member_20292 »

Singha wrote:one dark rainy night, we were in a taxi from kochi airport to kumarakom. there are two parallel NHs passing on the western side of the lake I think. I thought they were both town level interior roads until I checked the map later!

Should see NH 8, the seemingly awesome artery that links Delhi and Bombay, near Gurgaon.

It's like a bloody Old Dilli ki galli, when full of traffic and the pedestrians that routinely cross across it with gay abandon.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by SanjayC »

vipins wrote:Akhilesh Yadav government signs pact for India's longest six lane access controlled expressway
Talking about the project, Navneet Sehgal said that the 302 km long Lucknow to Agra Expressway would be the country longest access controlled six lane expressway.
The six lane expressway would be 110 meters wide and would cut down travel time from Lucknow to Agra from existing eight hours to less than four hours.

Interestingly the expressway would pass through the Yadav fiefdom of Etawah, Mainpuri and Kannauj and also link the industrial town of Kanpur.
This is the same Delhi-Agra Expressway being extended till Lucknow.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Supratik »

This has been around since the Akhilesh govt took power. I am sceptical about it. The similarity between Mayawati and Mulayam is that both are hafta collectors but the difference is that Maaywati will deliver something (YE, YEIDA, etc) and Mulayam will deliver "anda".

Good to know that Kerala wants to keep its infra upto date with Somalia using all kinds of excuses. If land can be acquired in the heart of Kochi and Tvm to build 4-6 lanes roads (I regularly follow SSC) I am sure NHs can also be built. The other emerging Somalia is WB (what a coincidence!!!) where you cannot acquire land officially as dictated by Didi.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Bade »

In KL it is all about economics now. You pay then you can get a 12-lane road too. But the state cannot afford to pay the market rates. When you displace someone owning property ( house on 10 cents land) worth 50 lakhs to 1 crore, you cannot expect him to walk away with a small fraction of that. It is not like he can go interior to rebuild, land in the coastal zone is expensive everywhere uniformly. The situation has no parallel in Bengal.

The hills are relative cheaper, but there too land is not available except the estates and forest land. Best to build greenfield expressways on govt land and easily acquired estates. Each situation requires tailoring to local needs. The failure of successive KL govts is in not pushing through what is feasible and practical.

My comments are specific to the current NH-17 alignment. NH-47 is almost done deal till Kochi.

Personally I would prefer these coastal roads to be state highways with a relaxed requirement in width, but more of them aligned in the N-S direction with frequent inter-connectivity. This way you spread the load around, rather than channel it all to NH-17 or NH-47 alone, especially the local traffic...till a true expressway can be built later further to the east.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Supratik »

Inspite of gulf money I find it hard to believe that in KL, which has no credible economy, land is more expensive than NCR and MMR which are the growth centers of India and where land is sold of in hundreds of crores and where 6-8 lanes roads and highways are being built all over the place in a geographical area much smaller than Kerala. Maybe close to city centers or in some pockets. But even if I take it for granted that land is indeed expensive you have to find out creative ways to fund it e.g. in the cities of Mumbai they use something like TDR Or loans from WB and JICA. Otherwise Kerala infra is going to remain like Bengal while others move ahead. This is from a well wisher. I don't agree with Theos ideas about the inability or inutility of building infra within built up pockets i.e. if you want to reach first world standards. I have been to Chennai recently. Most of built up space which need to be widened which I saw in Chennai in my brief stay are third class structures not Lutyens bungalows. In fact at one place I saw some demolitions of buildings that cannot be called expensive by any standard although the land may be expensive as was inside the city.

In Bengal land is relatively cheap but as I have discussed two things are difficult. Due to land reform and settling of millions of Bdeshis land holdings are small and one bigha may have have 25 people living on it and legally part-owners of it. So they cannot earn much by selling land. The other problem is that there is no credible economy. So what will they do after they sell the land. This problem has been latched onto by Didi who now has officially banned Govt from acquiring land officially except in certain exceptions. The E-W metro project is stuck becoz Didi will not help the railways take control over a small parcel of land in the city inspite of HC orders. This is the level of gutter politics.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Theo_Fidel »

Bade Saar,

My own view is the Government should wait and do it right when it has the money. All these short cuts are what got India into the mess it is in right now. In a hyper-dense corridor, roads may have to be grade separated, under ground or over ground in causeways. Think of the disaster the Calcutta metro was when India attempted it without the money or skills or equipment required and tried to half-a$$ it.

Ratchet up the pain level for the locals on the traffic till they agree to cough up the money required to do it right. India construction companies are getting better at building within a city. Put them to work.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Bade »

Supratik,

Theo has echoed some of the possible resolutions to issues faced in KL. It is dense but not city-dense to be able to afford top infrastructure. Land prices are ruling the direction of infra growth or lack of it. The long term solution I can see is what lack of affordability does to land transactions. It is almost there. I already see concept of flats even in faraway towns from city centers being attractive. What does it mean ? Land parcels ( 5-10 cents) are getting so expensive that some kind of aggregation will happen going forward all done by developers. But for this to happen there should be no more buyers for individual homes at current price levels.

More planned large communities along NH's will lead to better infrastructure. I believe this is what Theo was saying, in terms of wait till you get rich.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Supratik »

If you wait you will face more difficulty. It is not like that you will build a 2T dollar KL economy first and then build infra coz without infra you will not get to 2T economy. Have you considered the possibility that you are unable to buy the land becoz your Govt doesn't have enough revenues becoz you don't have a robust economy not the other way round. I recently travelled from Chandigarh to NCR. What I saw are huge developments taking place on both sides of the highway in HY - large, organized developments and at the same time the highway being widened to 6 lanes. These are not random third world developments but first world ones. This means the local economy is robust enough to finance this. So may be Kerala needs to get the economy right and for that the politics right first.

And we in Bengal need to find a good leader.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by SaiK »

Bade wrote:In KL it is all about economics now. You pay then you can get a 12-lane road too.
slightly OT, but I was willing to pay, but KSEB would not still upgrade my mom's connection to 3-phase. Recently, I read KL has bumped up rates for 3-phase users.. would not they then profit by providing me the required service?

service oriented nature is needed. sizes can be acquired by paying the private parties.. and in the corner road where it connects to a main road, I can't reach my mother's place with say any vehicle larger than a full-sized car. that means, it is a tough job for bringing in items with huge truck to unload stuffs (leaving behind the striking commie union workers demand for a sec! who occupying every gas station monitoring roads to offload items and demand ransom - can't even verify if they are genuine union guys)

q: why can't the gov pay the private parties and acquire the land for road expansion? I am sure most of these highways are in a place where there is enough room away from constructed buildings. there may be cases where it is not that needs review, but i'd expect KL having larger private space than public space. thanks to coconunt, plantain trees and terrain.
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Post by Bade »

The govt in KL is at least going ahead with city infra first. Trivandrum roads are done well, they were reasonably wide to begin with unlike in Kochi. All three cities Calicut included, is going to get a first class public transport in Metros. That in itself is tens of thousands of crores. There are industries sprouting around Kochi too. It will happen, only a matter of time. My only wish was for the govt in charge to be bit more visionary.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Bade »

SaiK, I have traveled in most southern states, and once you leave the NH and state highways, there is very little in terms of good road infrastructure anywhere in India. Maybe Punjab and Haryana are exceptions being richer states. Even in Karnataka with all the industries and wealth being there for a good 5 decades, there are still large pockets of kutcha roads right in B'lur.

KL is much better in that aspect. In front of our house it is essentially a one lane road, but tarred for the last decade or so. I remember it as a simple compacted sand road in the 70s and 80s and it went to being a metaled road in the 90s and then completely tarred by 2000 or so. Just talk to you local panchayat leaders.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by SaiK »

there is no two ways about it! KL is God's own when it comes to sanctum sanctorium of road cleanliness and maintenance. the local panchyat guy did help once ( bjp wala), but then I kept seeking him for electricity issue, he just ignores my calls. left a ton of messages on his mobile.
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Post by Bade »

We talk to our local cpm leader, who also doubles as our driver...well he has his own car which he prefers to bring for my mom. Since his parents benefited from land reforms from us, he has a soft corner and does favors. He was helping mom with a water connection etc. In India you need ground level support onlee....even in the cities. :-)

I think 3-phase connections are harder to get these days. I have not kept up on this, the reason I think is most land parcels are used for homes and not for crops or coconut plantations anymore.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Sachin »

Bade wrote:My comments are specific to the current NH-17 alignment. NH-47 is almost done deal till Kochi.
Are the land aquisition issues between Walayar and Mannuthi all sorted out? I understand some sort of work is going on there. One thing the KL govt should do is to clearly drum it into the heads of people that tolled highways are going to be the norm. Work out on some scheme which gets the people in immediate surroundings get some exemption, but if the whole state expects free rides using some excuse that would just not work.

NH-17 would be a much bigger problem to sort out, and NHAI may have washed its hands off. NH-47 just crosses three districts (PGT,TCR & EKM), where as NH-17 crosses much more districts and that too densely populated (EKM,TCR, MLM, CLT and beyond). In areas like Thalassery the NH-17 is like a town road with shops in very close vicinity. Land acquisition would be a challenge in each and every kilometre. Put the onus back on the state to figure it out. Today I was watching the news. And it mentioned about One RDO, 3-4 Tehsildars and umpteen junior ranks doing nothing for the past four years except collecting their pay cheques. They were all part of the "Land Acquisition Office" for NH-17. They have not even acquired a kilometre of land so far ;).
Personally I would prefer these coastal roads to be state highways with a relaxed requirement in width, but more of them aligned in the N-S direction with frequent inter-connectivity.
May be practical to do that. But NHAI or Central Govt. should not pay a single paisa for the maintenance. Let the state government figure out the way to improve these roads and maintain it. As I said throwing fist in the air and "demanding" some one else to do the nasty job should stop. If I read it right NHAI has given sanction to reduce the road width, but then state government has to build that road and maintain it ;).
Maybe Punjab and Haryana are exceptions being richer states.
Sir, Add TN to the list of states which has a good SH network. Roads are much much better when compared to KA or KL. Off course 100% literate Malayali may not like it, but the hard working Annachi seems to have got better roads. I know many people who now take various TN state highways to reach the commie heaven. Good roads and no tolls to pay ;).
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Bade »

NH-17 will need a complete rethink to widen to a standard 4-lane or even six lane highway. Going above ground level may be a must along large stretches of it, purely due to prevailing land values. I am not surprised they are not able to acquire any if there are no funds allocated by the state for such purpose. :-)

NH-47 section near Palakkad town may be not resolved yet, but large stretches of vacant land was visible alongside it's alignment. The hills are probably forest land where tunneling works are ongoing I think.

If you look at the numbers clearly connectivity in Kerala is much better than in Tamil Nadu, despite it being a much smaller state by area. TN has better National Highways as of now. But the smaller inner roads are probably so so. I happen to try out some side roads while on travel from Trivandrum to Madurai and it was no better than state highways in Kerala, both in road width or quality of the road.

Panchayath road lengths are 104,257 km for Kerala and 137,399 for TN. Connectivity is much better in KL after normalizing for area to cover, and perhaps maintenance costs incurred by the Govt to upkeep it all higher relative to the state revenues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roads_in_Kerala
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_network_in_Tamil_Nadu
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Bade »

There was talk of a coastal highway/corridor to connect to Vallarpadom ICTT road which is already quite wide as land was reclaimed from the backwaters to build it. A new alignment along the old Tipu Sultan road in Trichur District can double the added lanes in the N-S alignment and take the load off the NH-17 as it exists now. Acquiring land here may even be cheaper than alongside NH-17.

I have used the Trichur-Kodungallur state highway and it was an excellent quality road a year or so ago. That is why I said there are options available for the state to increase the quality of the existing connectivity.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Sachin »

Bade wrote:I happen to try out some side roads while on travel from Trivandrum to Madurai and it was no better than state highways in Kerala, both in road width or quality of the road.
My commute is mainly from Bangalore, Kerala to Palakkad, Haryana. SH in TN seems to be quite okay at least okay in Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri and Coimbatore districts. It is excellent in Erode Dt. Not so great in Salem Dt.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Singha »

TN is one place where a chinese style mesh grid of high quality NH could be created up updating the existing ones that move from the dharmapuri,salem,karur,dindigul,madurai side toward the coast in EW direction.
the coastal highway and the ones parallel to it NS through places like trichy can be upgraded similarly.
TN is the most urbanized state among the large states in india. and unlike other states it has no single CoG, but a set of cities nearly at the same level of output.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Theo_Fidel »

I drove through the coastal highways last year. South of Nagapattinam it is a complete shambles. It gets better near Tuti then gets really bad South of Tuti. Do not take if you can avoid! In places there a huge sand dunes that are burying the road and no action is being taken to preserve it. TN SH roads are quite good but lack proper shoulders and appropriate banking around the curves. Makes for a very uncomfortable ride as one is thrown back & forth. The roads were laid back in the Chola day without proper surveys and need to be straightened out at least a little. Near Tirupattur there is this incredibly twisty road that takes 18-19 km to go 10 km as the crow flies for no apparent reason. No doubt some big land owner object to crossing his property back in the day. If you can, for travels within 30 km or so a motorcycle is better. I still use my bullet to get around the SH network.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Aditya_V »

All the folks in Bengaluru, Kerala seem to be using those TN highways more than us Chennai residents :twisted: :twisted:

Do they have mpre time of most of TN more accessible from Bengaluru, Kerala than Chennai- Errr
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Singha »

the 'scenic' part of TN ie the nilgiris, dindigul, kodai, even valparai is definitely much more easier to bengaluru,kerala than chennai. so is madurai.

as mentioned you need to construct some 3 or 4 E-W NHAI std 6-lane roads to ease up access between the coast and the hills. the current NH network does not seem that great for this. financially it is viable in TN.

only place easier from chennai is pondi, but the thiruvanmalai road was being improved a couple yrs back and the last stretch from tindivanam was already 4 laned and super smooth long ago.

for driving tours in all directions the location of bluru is pretty strategic like TSP. goa, bijapur, hyd road, tirupati, chennai, pondi, nilgiris, madurai, wayanad, bhadra, honnavar, mangalore, udupi etc etc all doable. no other city except NCR can boast of such a pindi type location. and there are good hotels all over the place now and highways are mostly quite good.

chennai has no island chains off the coast to visit, no great beach i know of, no mountains nearby, onlee the cooum river and only the ECR as something to brag about.

ofcourse your TCS is beating the life out of infy and wipro.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Theo_Fidel »

Singha wrote:chennai has......no great beach i know of,
:eek:
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Post by Singha »

well name them sir!

marina has coarse sand and is hot as hell, with not so great water

VGP golden beach has become a dirty cesspool with plastic bags and other rubbish.

the mamallapuram beach near shore temple has tremendous rough waves and wind..enough to scare the crap out of anyone but local fishermen.

only the deserted beach behind the GRT temple bay there (now radisson blu) looked ok to me to some extent.

pondi has no great beaches from what I saw...again pretty rough water.

is there any I am unaware of with powder white sand, shallow and gentle sea ?

the indian mainland seems to lack in picture perfect beaches in general. only andaman and nicobar has them.

bluru, kerala has a better beach in club cabana resort :oops:
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Theo_Fidel »

Heh! no one calls chennai ocean rough. That is just how the ocean is and we are used to it. I have never been deterred from getting into the sea because of a 4 foot wave. There is plenty of good beach if you know where to look. Kovalam, Pulicat, Mahabalipuram, Muttukadu, Casaurina forests near nemmeli, Besant nagar, etc. This is not tropical paradise beach, Adaman or Thailand but serve their purpose just fine. Many a fun evening spent eating chundal and ellaneer and bouncing with the waves, maybe a swim out to the sand bar or cattamaram to have a chat with the meenkaran....

If you are really really up to it there are a few scuba types who can take you out to see the corals that grow off Pondi and Chennai. Yup! really.
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Post by Aditya_V »

Getting back to roads, is that most of the Travelogues to Ooty, Kodaikanal, Yelagiri, Valparai, Hpgeinakkal, Yercaud all start from Bengaluru, all these places are extra 200km to 300km from Chennai, that makes many of these places 8hr-10 hr drives and most families will not accept such a long drive. So its mostly a combo of Train or flight and then Drive in a hired car.

I always enjoy my holiday more in a self driven car where I control the tempo and the plan, time. Slowing down in forest areas/ nice view points to enjoy the scenery etc..

The Hired drivers just want to get you to A to B and do not want to wait along and sometimes take too much risk on the road than what I would consider as acceptable.

Anyone knows if the 3 laning of Bengaluru-Chennai highway has been completed?
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Sachin »

Aditya_V wrote:I always enjoy my holiday more in a self driven car where I control the tempo and the plan, time. Slowing down in forest areas/ nice view points to enjoy the scenery etc..
For folks from Chennai, I am sure there can be an intermediate halt (Yercaud is one place which just came to my mind) before reaching Kodaikanal, Ooty etc. Start early, take a break at Yercaud (for example), the start the next day and reach all these hill stations by afternoon. Now with Maps and GPS I feel we can easily find our way out.

I too prefer cars for my annual vacation (3-4 days affair), mainly because it allows lots of leeway in the plan. I was a hard-core fan of Railways, but now journey by trains is only to go to home town, or to places where I don't have much local travel.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Javee »

In TN, if the roads get laid as per the plans, then the entire East coast will be upgraded to 2, 4 and 6 laned highway from Kanyakumari to Chennai. Currently Some of the work has started already and some are still in early stages. Here is a post from SSC,
Total Length - 765 km
Four-laning of Chennai - Puducherry stretch - Pre bidding in progress
Chennai - Cuddalore - 166 km - 102 crores (ADB Fund) - Two laned
Puducherry - Nagapattinam stretch - Upgraded as NH 45A, double laned
Nagapattinam - Tuticorin Stretch - TNRSP/WB funded, (http://www.tnrsp.com/TNRSPII%20IFB/TNRS ... OPRC02.pdf)
Tuticorin - Kanyakumari stretch - Planning in progress.
http://www.tnrsp.com/rdmap.htm
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by negi »

I know it is nothing big but Old Airport road got redone in last 2-3 days , don't know whether it is a fallout from Modi's visit who landed at Old airport a month ago. I wish next time he take the Suranjan Das road. :oops:
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Sridhar K »

Aditya
6 laning complete from chennasamudram toll aka Ranipat to Hosur. Chennai to Ranipet will give ur ecosport a good working as it is getting into SUV territory.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by SaiK »

quality of roads are ignored by all. completion is by no means complete. 2 rain seasons, it is all over.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Aditya_V »

Sridhar K wrote:Aditya
6 laning complete from chennasamudram toll aka Ranipat to Hosur. Chennai to Ranipet will give ur ecosport a good working as it is getting into SUV territory.
Last year travelling in Accent to Yelagiri, this year travelling to Sholinghur, I know about the first 100km, so atleast all the flyovers after that are complete, that itself is good news.
Gus
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Gus »

oceans were dirtier in chennai than what i recall. mahabalipuram looked decent enough to jump in..

on the way back, jumped into the sea at tiger caves and lost my ring in the tumbling... :(
Javee
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Javee »

Bengaluru and Hyderabad are at the bottom of the traffic heap with average city speed of 14 km/hr, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune at 18 km/hr, Kolkata at 19 km/hr and Chennai at 20 km/hr. Traffic situation in cities across the country is reaching unsustainable levels.
http://www.bangaloremirror.com/columns/ ... 266625.cms
Yikes..
Gus
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Gus »

i knew it. chn traffic does move faster than blr. most of my friends did not believe it.

when the metro is done, chn traffic should get even better.
krishnan
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by krishnan »

agree with Singha , chennai beaches are mostly horrible , and can hardly call them beaches. They should first do away with those shops
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