Today's newspaper had an interesting letter to the editor (actually, several have been in the same vein) complaining about lack of infrastructure in Bangalore and saying that if government were quicker at building new roads and bypasses last week's bus strike (both the city bus company and the intrastate bus company went on strike Thursday and Friday, crippling the city) wouldn't have caused so much trouble since no one would need to take the buses if there were better roads. In addition to the obvious holes in that argument, this city is built out to the max. The only way to build anything new is to rip out something old.
No matter where you go in Bangalore there is always traffic and lots of it. Bangalore traffic (note the Mystery Spot bumper sticker!) Trips that you would think would be quick (e.g.., from here to the ATREE office about 5km away) take 30-40 minutes. Yesterday we made our first foray from the city limits by taking a bus to Bannerghata National Park. The Park is 23km (~14 miles) from the city center but it took 1 hour and 20 minutes on the bus. Sure, the bus stopped a few times to pick up people, but most of the time we were just idling in traffic. And that was nothing compared to the return trip which took 2 full hours. Granted, Nitin warned us to get to the Park early and return early since Saturday is a work day and there'd be traffic but I didn't have full comprehension of what he meant when he said traffic. Kekai & Tim on bus One of the good things about the day was that we figured out the mysterious bus system (at least two routes, one from our apartment to the bus station, the other from the bus station to the Park). It takes a lot of bravery to go to the station and get on a bus when you don't speak the language but overall, it worked out and we felt pretty good about it. Kalani, Mela & Kekai with bull elephant at zoo The "National Park" was also pretty cool even though it was a bit contrived. The safaris that they have set up (see Kalani & Kekai's blogs) go through large semi-natural enclosures with animals that are, for the most part, rescued circus animals (not to say tame. One of the tigers ate a little girl in the '90s) But they are still cool to see and they animals have a lot more space & freedom than in a traditional zoo. And the zoo was no worse than the Hilo zoo. The landscape was interesting (again -- there were trees, we're so tree-deprived that anything with more than 2 or 3 of them is fascinating) -- rock outcrops (the Deccan Plateau) stuck up all over the place. The outcrop in Bannargatha town was fantastic. Huge and sudden and very unexpected in an otherwise flat landscape. Typical Bangalore street (note the blue car going wrong way up the one way!) But back to the traffic. The reason it's so bad is that Bangalore is a developer's dream. Everywhere you look they are ripping out the old (entire neighborhoods) and putting in fancy new skyscrapers. The apartment complex we live in is only a couple years old, most of the development has occurred in the past 5 or 10 years. It's amazing to see so much construction all the time: new roads, new metro, but mostly new high-rises. One of the most memorable sites from the bus window was a nice slum (is there such a thing?): small (2m max height) nearly square cement-block houses tightly packed together with little dusty roads between them thru which I could glimpse women washing clothes and bored-looking children. It was relatively clean and not as horrible as some I've seen in Latin America, but still, obviously not a place you'd chose to live if there were better options. To either side of the area were multi-story (30+ floors?) highrises. One was shiny and fancy and covered in glass, the other was still being built -- all concrete and rebar but destined to be as fancy as the one on the other side of the little houses. I can' only guess that the high rises were sitting on land that was not long ago covered by similar tiny houses. High-density living in both instances but the juxtaposition of wealth and lack of it was stark. And, of course, people living in the slum weren't driving cars to and from their jobs each day whereas each of the hundreds of high rises being built is filled with hundreds of people adding hundreds of cars to the roads each day.
Today's newspaper had an interesting letter to the editor (actually, several have been in the same vein) complaining about lack of infrastructure in Bangalore and saying that if government were quicker at building new roads and bypasses last week's bus strike (both the city bus company and the intrastate bus company went on strike Thursday and Friday, crippling the city) wouldn't have caused so much trouble since no one would need to take the buses if there were better roads. In addition to the obvious holes in that argument, this city is built out to the max. The only way to build anything new is to rip out something old.
2 Comments
Nana-Honua Manuel
10/1/2012 11:11:06
Mela, so not what I expected! You moved to a city...I love what you folks are doing and hope you are all happy. Life moves along here and nothing changes. Or, everything changes! Depend on how you look at it. We enjoy the blog and love seeing how fast you all are growing up!
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pamela scheffler
10/2/2012 14:31:44
so not what I expected either. I try to stay positive about it, but not sure how I'll deal with 9 months in a city! Kids had a 4-day weekend (M. Gandhi's birthday) so we went to a couple potential field sites 5-6 hours from the city. Trees, birds, troops of monkeys....we felt much more at home.
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