The one family one car idea
Trust our netas to come up with shortcuts to cover for their failures. Just read about this suggestion from Transport Minister Mr Cheluvaraya Swamy that talks of one family one car rule to bring the traffic situation under control.
Can’t make the city safe for women in the nights, ban them working late nights. Cant manage this traffic, force people to abandon vehicles. What is next I wonder. Don’t have enough schools in the city, make kids stay at home? Don’t have enough water, force people to wash clothes only once a week? Don’t have enough jobs, allow only one worker per family? Hold on, I am getting worked up now.
Yes sir, the underlying thought behind the idea is good – somehow, you must discourage use of private transport. Your ideas on encouraging public transportation and car pooling are good. But please, don’t try these draconian measures. Last I checked, we still lived in India, not China! Instead, first work aggressively on public transport or your car-pooling idea. And then, perhaps gradually discourage purchase of cars by increasing vehicle registration taxes via a public-transport cess?
Sir, you solve our traffic woes by walking the talk on your 10 point program, or by fast tracking your BTRAC project. You make things better by managing the unruly drivers via enforcement, because I think we have enough roads for the cars and buses we have today. You manage traffic by encouraging people to spread out by fast tracking Satellite town concepts and crawling projects like the BMIC. You make city’s growth manageable by allowing large commercial and residential projects to come up only after you make sure you can create adequate amount of infrastructure (roads, water, power etc) for the new jobs and new residents.
Moreover, why are the ministers coming up with ideas? Their job is to listen to people, execute on good ideas and help enforce the law. Traffic management ideas better be coming from Transportation engineers or experts, certainly not the ministers.
BTW, honorable Transport Minister Mr Cheluvaraya Swamy himself has two cars. He justifies that by saying that since he travels a lot on work, he needs one for himself and one for the family.
Transport Minister Mr Cheluvaraya Swamy is living in Bengalaa-laa-laa-luru, that mythical place where ministers could still just pontificate and “make rules” without being responsible for enforcing them.
We have enough rules, but no enforcement.
Traffic enforcement is a complete JOKE. (Just stand and watch the Marathahalli bridge someday.)
Zoning rules and building-code enforcement is a complete JOKE. (Lake encroachment anyone?)
Workplace safety rules enforcement is a complete JOKE.
and the list goes on….
There was a time when Ministers only had to say something and people obeyed to some extent, since they feared the enforcement. That was Bangalore 1950.
From what I can tell, no one fears enforcement here, since no one obeys the rules, and they all seem to get away with it forever.
Why one car per family ? I think our transport minister is very soft on people,He should think of BAN all private vehicles and force to use only BMTC in Bangalore, However Govt should think providing a dozen of cars for our beloved minster as there family members also need govt vehicles.
Fab post, SB! Made for compelling reading. More, please!
that’s gives a completely new meaning to the word ‘family planning’
‘Hum Do, Humare Do aur hamari Ek (car)’!
that’s gives a completely new meaning to the phrase ‘family planning’
‘Hum Do, Humare Do aur hamari Ek (car)’!
Obviously the minister is joking…. He has suggested things like stopping registration etc and examining the things legally so that nobody gets a stay for it!!!
I dont think this law will hold water. It will be done away with ASAP as public protest.
Obviously the minister is joking…. He has suggested things like stopping registration etc and examining the things legally so that nobody gets a stay for it!!!
I dont think this law will hold water. It will be done away with ASAP as public protest.
If Metroblogs was run by the Minister we would be allowed to post only once…
The Minister has work and his family has needs..of course, none of the rest of us work, and our families don’t have needs!
The Minister also has brilliant, workable solutions…we don’t have these, either!
If you need a online map to locate in bangalore you can visit Bengalooru Map
Yeah silkboard, on the face of it this doesn’t make sense at all . Definitely the approach is wrong here. Ban, Restrict, Discontinue are the words that are constantly coming from this government.
With all due respects to everyone here, I beg to differ with you all.
First of all, eveyone here seem to pounce on the utterances of a politician and dissect it to the extent possible and draw conclusions with a bias towards yours own.
From when did we start taking these statements of a politician, so seriously.
No one here is perfect, nor the system we live in. Whoever sits in those positions, under various compulsions, make certain statements, that may or may not make sense. It would have nice if the intent behind the statement was discussed rather than take literal meaning out of it.
In kannada, we say “mathige abhipraya irathe, artha irolla”. To quote an example – if someone comes to you and asks for something that you have, it is natural tendency to say “I don’t have it”, if you don’t intend to share. It is foolish to take literal meaning out of that sentence.
Coming back to the topic, no law or rule can satisfy all parties. There are people on both sides of the fence, always.
Again, until each person has self-restraint on ourselves and desires, no such rules will ever work towards getting the actual problem solved or even if enforced will leave the vast majority disattisfied and eventually lead to such laws overthrown.
Reason : In democracy – It is not common sense that always prevails, but the will of the majority (Right or Wrong).
Didn’t really pounce on Mr Minister. Notice the praise for his ideas on public transport and car-pooling. Anyways.
Let me take your thoughts on democracy further by quoting something from Bernard Shaw (this appeared in DH today to remind me) that I fully believe in:
“Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve”
better late than never. forgot to write a note of thanks to comment-er folks.
We have not heard about this again. I hope the idea doesn’t get buried away and gets discussed more, because then, at least the underlying thoughts (encouraging public transport) will get the attention and focus they deserve.
Public Transport: who are the ministers trying to please by starting the Metro project via M G Road, where as the heart and hub of the software industry is EC and Whitefield and these will be covered under phase 2 which i guess will take another 10 years to come up. I am seeing the worst political decision taken in our state in the name of public transport; for instance if you take a BMTC Bus you ought to touch Shivajinagar or Majestic and change ‘N’ number of bus so why would some one opt for Public transport and waste time. If the Minister are speaking about one car per family how come the CM’s son has 3-4 cars forget the other cars in their family…
Here is a brand new suggestion :
A major reason for traffic problems in Bangalore are large trucks.
Commercial Goods Carriers (HTVs or Large trucks).
In some other Indian cities (Delhi is a good example), heavy transport vehicles are not allowed into the city during the day. But in Bangalore, large trucks move on the ring road, and other smaller roads, 24×7. They often break-down due to their age and will then stand in the middle of the road for hours – not caring how the others are affected by them. Sometimes this leads to accidents.
The best part with these trucks is that during rush hour, they fill-up and block the entire road. One truck moving at 20KM/hr is overtaking a second truck at 10km/hr ! Its a free country when it comes to driving on the roads in Bangalore. Might is Right.
In fact, if trucks and goods carriers were not allowed in the city during day time from say 8am to 10pm, or atleast during rush hours (7am-11am and then 5pm-10pm), a lot of the pain associated with the lack of roads will reduce.
But that requires empowered policemen to get things done and a will to drive the need by the politicians.