Indian Roads Thread

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 25 Nov 2014 13:21

For those jingos who miss home, and would like to see the state of roads and just feel a general sense of nostalgia for times gone by - and remember some of the places of teens and 20s, go through this site - especially the Travelogue section. Wonderful. And it also gives you an idea of infrastructural improvements that have happened over the past two decades or so.

http://www.bcmtouring.com/forum/travelogues-f9/

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 25 Nov 2014 13:47

chennai city roads have gone bad to worst , roads that were good just a month back is in horrible shape

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 25 Nov 2014 15:22

Yup do not agree with the Bengaluru Mirror article, must have driven on Chi Chi OMR after Perungudi and 20km per hour. I am averaging 10-12 kph per hour.

Javee · Post by **Javee** » 26 Nov 2014 10:04

Actually ECR is faster than OMR, I average 24 km/h by the time I get to work and my drive is through Mylapore and Adayar.

Bus roads are being relaid in most of the sections in Chennai, the interior roads are always a hit or miss. Chennai received a pretty good amount of rain for this monsoon and with the way our roads are laid, it is bound to be washed off. The interior concrete roads are still in a decent shape compared to the tarred ones.

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 01 Dec 2014 19:44

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/commun ... 12670.html

Delhi-Amritsar NH to complete by May

Kapurthala, November 30
The 470 km Delhi-Amritsar National Highway-I will be completed by May 15 next year as the contractor has started the construction work on the remaining portion of the highway, National Highways Authority of India Member Finance Satish Chandra said.

Chandra is on a two-day visit to monitor the progress of work on the 20 km stretch of the NH-1 from Bidhipur Railway crossing to Dhilwan and Amritsar-Pathankot National Highway.

Speaking about the National Highways network in Punjab, Chandra said: "Construction work on the Dera Bassi flyover has started and is expected to cost Rs 130 crore. The work on the six km stretch of Ludhiana-Ferozepur road has also been initiated and the remaining 6 km stretch between Ludhiana-Chandigarh would be completed by February 15 next year."

Replying to a question about the four-laning work of the Ludhiana-Moga-Ferozepur National Highway, which had been abandoned by a private construction company, Chandra said the company has agreed to restore the work soon.

He said the network of national highways in Punjab would be complete with the conclusion of four-laning works of the Amrtisar-Ferozepur and Amritsar-Bathinda National Highways next year.

He said each district in the country would be connected to national highways with three roads and added that the state governments have been asked to submit their plans.

On the rising toll plaza charges, Chandra said the rates would decline to 40 per cent in 2023 as the contractors would realise cost of construction by then and afterwards toll rates would remain at 40 per cent for the maintenance of the highways in the country.

He said the NHAI had recently taken a decision that no contractor would be allowed to impose toll taxes on the highways till the completion of its construction work.

Chandra said 8,000 km of national highways would be completed by March 2015 and the remaining 12,000 km by 2017. - PTI

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 01 Dec 2014 21:18

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

Err...the beach is for all people. Right now that is the only affordable place for lower middle class and below folks.

An evening at marina with some rides, corn, balloons etc is still about 100 rs for a family with two kids. I am fine with the hawkers and the shops. If you want chi chi go to Bessy or the numerous resorts in ECR etc.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 01 Dec 2014 23:22

If they are hygienic, do waste disposal, cleaning up properly and ensure guests don't litter. Otherwise they don't deserve to be there. Same thing should be mandatory for other kaiyendhi bhavans around the city. Sadly nobody cares until we get hit by cholera outbreaks. Then we have huge crowds wailing on t.v. from the gh. Poor doesn't mean they shouldn't be fed properly made food without disturbing others.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 02 Dec 2014 00:17

A little OT but the worst polluters on Marina are too often the rich folks.
They buy food indiscriminately and dump it everywhere. All the aluminium cans and plastic bottles come from them. A few years back I saw several diapers! Just thrown onto the sand for others to clean. The poor are no angels mind you but too many rich set a horrific example for them to follow.

In Miami beach, probably closest to Marina in use and climate the sand is regularly washed and cleaned by machines like the one below. But this is expensive. Sometimes there is a water truck attached to wash the sand and remove ‘organic’ gunk…..

The Marina does not get fresh sand and needs a thorough cleaning.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 03 Dec 2014 04:24

My parents drive on the Mumbai-Goa road (NH 17 was original designation, don't know what is the new one) between Mumbai and Ratnagiri in MH quite often. Latest reports from them are quite depressing. That highway is very very heavily used and has become extremely dangerous because it remained a 2-lane road despite exponential increase in traffic. 4-laning work has been going on for several months without any appreciable progress. Worse still, the few sections which have been newly 4-laned are so pathetically constructed, that they are already riddled with potholes. My father said he found the older 2-lane sections to be actually better in comparison.

Since it is a national highway, I'm assuming the construction work is NHAI's responsibility. It sets big (for us) targets like 20km per day, but even if that is achieved it is absolutely useless if the quality of work is so poor if the road is left nearly unusable even before it is complete.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 03 Dec 2014 07:05

^^^ Some of the state highways in KL are in much better condition than NH-17 (now NH-66) segments there. The usual blame is put on KL govermand for not doing land acquisition, so that NHAI can meet national standards before awarding contracts, while potholes grow in numbers and size. I rather use the rubberized 1+1 lane state highways for all my intra-state travel.

Even the segments like bridges for which they promptly collect toll there, are riddled with potholes. LA excuse should not work there, but still it is neglected. A poor fella on a scooter on a rainy night fell just to the side of our car and lucky for us we did not run him over, as the multitude of pot holes ensured that we too were slow.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 03 Dec 2014 08:40

^^^ just like moral policing and kissOfLove, they could also start filling the pot holes. heck, it is more moral than the earlier cases. gobermund any way no game playing.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 03 Dec 2014 15:41

Saar did you read...NH-17 is under NHAI not GoK afaik. I have been on State highways to avoid the mess of NH-17 and NH-47 multiple times and they are smoother than Hema Malini's cheeks.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 03 Dec 2014 18:24

Bade wrote:Saar did you read...NH-17 is under NHAI not GoK afaik.

Is it that even the NHAI is a on a go-slow mode when it comes to NH-47 and NH-17? I mean, they just let the highway remain as is, no further developments until land procurements are over?

negi · Post by **negi** » 03 Dec 2014 18:47

Bade wrote:Saar did you read...NH-17 is under NHAI not GoK afaik. I have been on State highways to avoid the mess of NH-17 and NH-47 multiple times and they are smoother than Hema Malini's cheeks.

Here they are like Om Puri's cheeks.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 03 Dec 2014 22:38

Sachin, yes LA is not done in some stretches, so they have a technical excuse for those segments. But for the bridge like the one over Periyar into North Parur from the Trichur district side, they have been collecting toll since I was a teenager. The new bridge came up when I was in Pre-degree and was not complete till I left the state. The road condition there has been so-so at the best of times to large potholes soon after the monsoons.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 03 Dec 2014 22:42

Land acquisition can never be an excuse for bad road construction. Countries around the world, rich or poor, manage to build decent roads that don't completely crumble in a few months. There is nothing bleeding edge about it. It's an absolute disgrace that we still can't do it.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 04 Dec 2014 08:43

^that is because they don't swindle and do corruption. desh is like they get paid for laying couple or a foot of foundation, but they just put 1", and so are the asphalt thickness reduced.. they mix the earth with rocks more for the foundation and fill up.. run the road rollers and done! pocket the money.

gadkari said they are going for concrete foundations like massa., and perhaps overlay with asphalt and periodically scrape and re-asphalt. that is like very khaanic!

he seems to have found an indian researcher doing studies in Oz unv adding some ash content to cement to reduce concrete costs to 3 times less.

rubberized top is another way to extend roads, but will last as much as the asphalt quality is. BARC/DRDO should by now invented some kinda no-clear machine that melts earth material on the way, and a roller follows up to straighten and becomes well laid and patterned. that is an invention! voila. fizzic wise possible?

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 04 Dec 2014 11:23

Bade wrote:Sachin, yes LA is not done in some stretches, so they have a technical excuse for those segments. But for the bridge like the one over Periyar into North Parur from the Trichur district side, they have been collecting toll since I was a teenager. The new bridge came up when I was in Pre-degree and was not complete till I left the state. The road condition there has been so-so at the best of times to large potholes soon after the monsoons.

So looks like the state government machinery is also not able to put pressure on NHAI to get the basic work done? Looks like when it comes to NHAI and KL State Govt. it is pretty much a "cold war". And with a very unfavourable (for KL politicos) central government, don't expect much luck from that corner either.

muraliravi · Post by **muraliravi** » 04 Dec 2014 18:24

On my twitter, i follow make in India, I saw a tweet which said 473 km vadodara-mumbai expressway will be built at a cost of $4.3bn.

Are they kidding, i mean that rs 54 crore per km. Current rate is at max 18 cr (even thats high, its about 14) for a 6 lane highway. An access controlled expressway might be about rs 20 crore per km.

Who is authorizing this ridiculous payment.

SanjayC · Post by **SanjayC** » 04 Dec 2014 19:07

^^^ Did you factor in the land cost?

muraliravi · Post by **muraliravi** » 04 Dec 2014 19:24

SanjayC wrote:^^^ Did you factor in the land cost?

Thats a good question, so when we read that 1 km of a 4/6 lane highway costs xx crores, does that usually include land or not?

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 04 Dec 2014 19:54

It may be the correct amount. The less than 200 km Yamuna expressway was built for Rs 10000 crore.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 04 Dec 2014 21:59

obviously it will include land cost , unless it runs into govt owned land, even then they will have to pay some compensation

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 04 Dec 2014 22:37

muraliravi wrote:
SanjayC wrote:^^^ Did you factor in the land cost?
Thats a good question, so when we read that 1 km of a 4/6 lane highway costs xx crores, does that usually include land or not?

Such quoted costs are construction costs; land price is a variable, while construction costs are usually predictable based on type of road and # of lanes, for a generally uniform topological route. Nothing wrong with that total price including land acquisition costs.

muraliravi · Post by **muraliravi** » 05 Dec 2014 01:01

Suraj wrote: Such quoted costs are construction costs; land price is a variable, while construction costs are usually predictable based on type of road and # of lanes, for a generally uniform topological route. Nothing wrong with that total price including land acquisition costs.

Makes sense. But i mean with the sanctioned budget for roads, unless they get significant ppp, 30 kms/day will be a pipedream.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 05 Dec 2014 01:28

Ahmedabad-Mumbai is not a hard route to get funding or land clearances for. If two dynamic and industrialized BJP-run states can't do this, then yes, roadbuilding has a problem.

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 05 Dec 2014 02:24

Marten wrote:We need roads like Naypyidaw! 12 lanes to help reach out 40 years into the future.
Might as well get the acquisition in place for the HSR at the same time! It should actually help if feeder roads/highways are accounted for during this period. Doing this in phases might offset the cost, but land acquisition being what it is these days, would make sense planning the rail alignments too right now.

We don't need 12 lanes for intercity travel. Only bypasses/ring roads near population centres or arterial roads for intra-city travel need to be several lanes. For that I doubt even 12 lanes will be enough at some places.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 07 Dec 2014 07:59

krishnan wrote:obviously it will include land cost , unless it runs into govt owned land, even then they will have to pay some compensation

then they can't refer it with "cost of building" then. cost of the project would be ideal.. and it makes more sense and keeps public away from wrong interpretations.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 07 Dec 2014 15:56

yes it has to be cost of project not building

Javee · Post by **Javee** » 09 Dec 2014 19:46

From SSC,

The quickening spread

“THE city is old,” says Dhakshinamoorthy Dhinakaran, a property developer who has built a gated development of two-storey houses 35km south-west of Chennai and 15km from Lakewood Enclave. He has a point. Chennai is a scruffy place. The British, who called it Madras, left it with few grand buildings, and some of those it once boasted were subsequently razed in favour of shopping centres or new digs for Tamil Nadu’s politicians. Many buildings look older than they are, and not in a good way—they have been corroded by hot sun and humid air. The sewers overflow when it rains. But outside Chennai, a new India is rising.

The roads out of the city are lined with half-finished four- and five-storey apartment blocks, most with man-sized figurines lashed to concrete pillars to ward off superstitious trespassers. Behind them, tidy family houses and high-rise apartment buildings are going up. Every other billboard seems to advertise new homes.

Chennai is spreading less because its inhabitants are desperate to leave the old city than because their jobs have moved. Carmakers have built factories outside the city, and workers have followed. Information technology has grown to the south. The World Bank calculates that, between 1998 and 2005, the number of IT jobs within 25km of the centre of Chennai increased by 27%. In the same period, 47% more IT jobs were added in an outer ring between 25km and 50km from Chennai. In high-tech manufacturing, the urban core lost about a quarter of its workers, while the outer ring gained 23% more jobs.

The biggest and most spectacular IT campus in Tamil Nadu belongs to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). It looks like Optimus Prime taking a nap. The 60,000 people inside the Transformer lookalike do back-office tasks for Western firms and governments. One of them, taking a lunch break, is Karbagam Chandrasekaran. She lives at home with her parents in Chennai, and takes a bus to the campus each day—a journey of about an hour and a half. She likes city living for its convenience, but has heard that the schools are better in the suburbs, and would prefer to live closer to work. When she marries (young Indians almost always say “when”, not “if”) she expects to move out, particularly if her husband also works in the IT corridor.

More than 225 TCS buses run to and from campus every day, many of them carrying workers to and from homes in the old city. Other IT firms do the same, with the result that traffic jams towards Chennai in the evening are often worse than the jams in the opposite direction. But this is changing. Ravi Viswanathan, TCS’s president for growth markets, says that new employees are more likely to live in the suburbs. Buildings are newer, rents are lower and well-regarded private schools have appeared, along with new hospitals and restaurants. At the weekend, Mr Viswanathan says, the main roads around TCS’s campus used to be almost deserted except for cattle. Now they are thick with cars and motorbikes.

http://www.economist.com/suburbs

225 TCS buses for 60k people, then you got Infy with atleast 5 to 10k, HCL with 25k, CTS with atleast 15k, Wipro with 10k and a host of tier 2 companies like Polaris, Mahindra Satyam etc and then a bunch of college buses (atleast 10 colleges or so) and finally the ubiquitous MTC buses, have not included the private cars, taxis and the two wheelers. All this action goes in to the famed OMR/IT Expressway on any given day. The numbnets have failed to create a sustainable BRTS or MRTS or Metro system to tackle this growth. Even if they end up building a 12 laned expressway, it will soon be chocked to death. Thats the level of planning we are putting up with.

uddu · Post by **uddu** » 11 Dec 2014 05:36

Triple deckers may be the solution.

http://hoaxes.org/weblog/comments/a_bri ... cker_buses
still on routes where there are no bridges etc..better to run a single such bus instead of four more.
http://2013hoaxblog.s3.amazonaws.com/tripledecker04.jpg

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 14 Dec 2014 14:45

NTR's grand son (through his eldest son Hari Krishna) died in a road accident by colliding with a tractor which was coming on the wrong side of the high way because the driver could not care to drive some extra distance on the correct side. The deceased has young kids. The tractor driver should be made an example of and hanged.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 01 Jan 2015 21:53

North-east states like Arunachal Pradesh probably has the worst roads in the country. Granted the altitude makes things difficult, but after spending 1000+ crores BRO has only this to show then something stinks. Out of the 400+kms I traveled on, I counted 10km (yes, ten km) of a well made 1+1 lane stretch. Talk of corruption. That small stretch looked like what can be if one can put our minds to it.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 01 Jan 2015 22:01

Border Roads Organisation to be brought exclusively under Defence Ministry: Parrikar

Around 6,000-7,000 kms of non-sensitive roads in border areas will be handed over to the National Highways Authority of India, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said.

Incidentally, BRO has failed to meet the deadlines in 73 strategic road projects on the India-China border, cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Security in June 2006.

The deadline to complete the 3,500-km road build up was 2012. But so far only over 500 kms of roads have been built, and the deadline has been extended to 2016.

Haresh · Post by **Haresh** » 03 Jan 2015 16:55

India to plant 2 BILLION trees along its highways, creating jobs for 300,000 youths

http://www.treehugger.com/environmental ... hways.html

sunilUpa · Post by **sunilUpa** » 05 Jan 2015 01:00

Haresh wrote:India to plant 2 BILLION trees along its highways, creating jobs for 300,000 youths

http://www.treehugger.com/environmental ... hways.html

So we need 1 youth for every 7 trees?

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 05 Jan 2015 01:06

Why do we need trees along the highways ? At most shrubs in the median is what is essential to block incoming traffic lights, which is not the safest design option for high speed carriageways.

Trees were planted in old days to provide for shade for walkers and slow moving carts.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 05 Jan 2015 03:46

Bade wrote:Why do we need trees along the highways ? At most shrubs in the median is what is essential to block incoming traffic lights, which is not the safest design option for high speed carriageways.

Trees were planted in old days to provide for shade for walkers and slow moving carts.

Why not?

On average 200trees will give 1Carbon Credit. So 2b trees will give a 10m carbon credits, that is ~$40m income/yr.

This project solves 3 problems.
1. Increase Eco-footprint. Reduces the carbon emission costs to Indian Economy, which helps us to have more automobiles per the same $
2. Additional income from trees assuming these are of permanent crop variety (coconuts, mangos, Timber etc). On average 200trees will give RS 10-20,000 income.
3. Offer employment to 300,000 people. Equivalent of a $5B industry project.

And yes, they give shade too.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 05 Jan 2015 05:29

By the way same with lawns too. They are eco-friendly. But one needs to consider the water footprint vs. carbon footprint reduction.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 05 Jan 2015 05:43

matrimc wrote:By the way same with lawns too. They are eco-friendly. But one needs to consider the water footprint vs. carbon footprint reduction.

Saar, since when lawn==Trees?

http://cleanmetrics.typepad.com/green_m ... -lawn.html