[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by aneezan

I hear this has already been taken to the local police/panchayat, however, don't think any action will be taken soon.

They might cause a cop did get stuck on one these while he was doing rounds on his motorcycle.

At the same time, it will be worth putting up a picture on the BTP facebook page. Let me try today.

[itwasntme]

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan

Heck there's a line running quite close to the airport. All they had to do was extend the line by a few km to the airport, run diesel or electric multiple units in intervals of 15min and you have connectivity to the airport. Why bother building a new metro. You have to look at the cost comparison.

No one wanted it: Neither the Railways, nor the State government (then ruled by our stellar 'GIM' Yeddy & Janardhana Reddy) and nor BIAL/GVK.

After the Delhi Metro fiasco, it remains to be seen how viable Phase III (Nagavara to BIAL) will be:

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/fMd...-discarde.html

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/9HB...-phase-II.html

I forunately live in north Bangalore and really pity those south Bangaloreans commuting to/from the airport.

[sandeepmohan]

Update: monster concrete speed breaker removed on one side of dinnur road. The other one still remains but it looks like they have tried to give it a gradual rise. You might still hit it though. It needs to go or get rebuilt.

[aneezan]

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan

Update: monster concrete speed breaker removed on one side of dinnur road. The other one still remains but it looks like they have tried to give it a gradual rise. You might still hit it though. It needs to go or get rebuilt.

Was just about to post this. Yes, one of them has been completely scraped out. I could see the full block lying on the side of the road.
Hopefully, the second one will be out by tomorrow.

On your earlier post, just curious to know which road do you take from here to Cox town? All the way to Old Madras Road, and then ORR?

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by aneezan

On your earlier post, just curious to know which road do you take from here to Cox town? All the way to Old Madras Road, and then ORR?

ORR is an option and it is what I used to take. Get down KR Puram bridge, climb on to ORR bridge, first left after coming down the ORR bridge and in to Kasturi Nagar and so on. I have given up this route now. The little Indian Oil fly over that runs beside Mukunda Theater is a wreck and leads to very slow moving traffic during peak hours. The jam starts right from the military gate.

I now continue on old madras road, pass the Vivekananda Road metro station and hang a right which is also known as Isolation bus stop. For some weird reason, traffic seems to move a lot better on old madras road. I get held up for a very short duration at the big bazaar intersection signal and the HAL intersection signal, where you have the railway line cutting across the road. This has been my observation over the last week. The bottle neck is the Byapanahalli Gate. Things go horribly wrong if the gate is closed. I've not had a bad day over the last week. I don't need to cross the gate as I take the left just beside the gate. The road runs parallel to the railway line. Taking this really long detour still gets me home in an hour maximum.

Yupp; so its dinnur main road, up the Kadugodi bridge, continue on SH35 till it hits OMR, left, on to the highway, etc. Really really long but I've done this route in under 50 minutes on my motorcycle.

I can't get back to using whitefield main road. On one evening, it took a horrible one hour and 40minutes to cover 14km. That is how bad it gets.

[aneezan]

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan

I can't get back to using whitefield main road. On one evening, it took a horrible one hour and 40minutes to cover 14km. That is how bad it gets.

Wow! That is really a long de-tour.
I too take the OMR when I go to my office at Manyata. The whitefield road is a mess, and though things have cleared up after KR Puram, it is from the Big Bazaar Junction till KRPuram railway station that the going is tough. The roads have become really pathetic.

[rahulsnh]

What I really do not get is when the road tax is highest how can the road quality be the poorest?

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by rahulsnh

What I really do not get is when the road tax is highest how can the road quality be the poorest?

Karnataka has really never had good roads. Other than the posh bits of Bangalore and of course, the City of Kings, Mysore.

The roads in the rural districts have to be seen to be believed. When my Dad was planting in Coorg and Chikmagalur areas, I remember there were only craters everywhere, no roads...

I speak from experience, right from the 1970's when, as a kid I have been visiting the state with my folks.

Karnataka of today, sadly, has a bunch of half witted horse traders sitting in power and in the bureaucracy, nasty un educated, wicked people who are only interested in lining their own pockets and making money. They are the least bothered about the poor tax paying public.

Things like this are what make me extremely frustrated and cause me to entertain thoughts of emigrating once and for all.

[binand]

Deccan Herald today has dedicated its page 2 to the cab sector of Bangalore. Two articles, each focusing on one point:

1. That there is a massive shortage of drivers in Bangalore. The lobby groups want the government to relax the 8th-pass restriction to get a permit in Bangalore. So far the government has not been willing, but it might. They also want to attract drivers from north India (like Mumbai/Delhi).

2. The new cab services that undercut the existing ones operating in the BIAL-city sector. Ola and Uber are named. These guys offer discounts on the "approved" fare, which the existing players don't like. Passing mention is made of the Indica guys who offer the ride for around Rs. 8 a km, and to the BIAS services of BMTC.

Some details on the economics of the cab sector too. I wasn't aware that the IT employees pay for the cab privilege (it is not a job perk), for example.

[Mad Max]

NGV area is blocked due to one side of road being closed for work. Very bad traffic compounded by really idiotic drivers coming from all directions. Please be aware. Took me about 1 hour to cross.

[Soumyajit9]

Originally Posted by binand

Deccan Herald today has dedicated its page 2 to the cab sector of Bangalore......
Some details on the economics of the cab sector too. I wasn't aware that the IT employees pay for the cab privilege (it is not a job perk), for example.

I tried looking up the e-paper of DH and DC, couldn't find an article.

Could you please tell us more about what the article says about "IT Employees pay for the cab privilege (it is not a perk job)" ?

In general, if we travel for work, we (IT guys) get reimbursed on the amount spent on a cab (both AC and Non-AC). The organization only needs the printed bill in original.

EDIT:: My bad, I was searching today's paper. sandsun7 pointed me to the correct article. Reading it now.

[Soumyajit9]

Mods: Kindly merge my above post with this one. 30min timeline expired, so couldn't edit the above post.

When asked about the discounted fares and per km fare being Charged less than that fixed by the government,Transport Department official Maruthi Sambrani, Joint Commissioner (South, Enforcement, told Deccan Herald that the department is acting on misuse of permits and not discounted fares. “If a cab with state permit is authorised to ply between Bangalore and Tumkur, the cab cannot use that permit to operate within the city or between Bangalore and the airport, which requires a special city permit. We are acting against cabs using state permits and then charging Rs 7-8 per km way below the Rs 19.50 per km set by the government to operate between city and airport. We have booked 81 such cases. A special squad has been set up to eliminate cabs under-pricing and misusing permits. As for the discounted fares, if cabs have the valid city permit, then it is an open market situation. If such cabs charge over Rs 19.50, then we act act against them. If they are charging below the minimum fare, we don’t act because its open market - if you want to give a discount, you can. If you can afford to run the taxi below the minimum fare per km, you can.

I just read the article and the plight of the drivers and cab owners.
Also read some unethical and illegal steps taken to offer cheaper, yet comfortable rides to customers. (like State permits and City permits and Airport permits).

Yes, its the duty of cops to conduct surprise checks on the permits and crack down on unethical and illegal misuse of permits !!

But in the end, like quoted below, its upto the operator if he can give discounts and still run the business. If the local Indicab guys are jobless now due to the cut-throat competition from other big operators, then its sheer bad luck and fate. I don't see anything wrong with that. I may sound harsh and inhumane, but then that's how is today's world.

Companies may charge you as high as Rs 2,000. Most employees are willing to pay because the travel is long and hard and takes away two and a half hours in a day. Doing this by bus is very tiresome. But the comfortable rides are usually made available by top IT companies. On the other side are companies that hire Tata Sumos and pack in quite a few people. Seating is not very comfortable, with employees having to sit facing each other and stuffed inside. Because of odd timings, employees take these rides too at a lower cost of say Rs 800-1200 per month. Tier two or three companies offer
these relatively uncomfortable rides.With long distances to travel home and to office, and bus travel tiring, what’s the other option?”

Also, this is interesting news to me. When I was working for Wipro, the company used to charge me an amount from my payroll for availing bus service. Accenture does provide free bus service, though an amount from the CTC is made as taxable. But nothing extra is charged.
In Wipro and Accenture, Cabs are always free. One gets entitled for cab service only if he/she works in shifts.

Charging from employees for availing cab service is interesting and new to me.
I had pointed out somewhere earlier that the reason for introducing cab service is to provide transportation to employees during non-standard working hours (like say late evening and early morning shift timings). This is a perk for employees. Why the hell bring in cabs and then start charging from employees ?

I say some of the "richer" organizations are spoiling the employees with luxury and comfort and asking a premium for it. They aren't just worried that they are just adding to the chaos on the roads of B'lore. Rather these companies should invest in flexi wwork hours and work from home options so that they can cut cost on vehicles, fuel, maintenance, travel times, etc etc.

Cheers,
Just another frustrated IT Employee

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by binand

Deccan Herald today has dedicated its page 2 to the cab sector of Bangalore. Two articles, each focusing on one point:

1. That there is a massive shortage of drivers in Bangalore. The lobby groups want the government to relax the 8th-pass restriction to get a permit in Bangalore. So far the government has not been willing, but it might. They also want to attract drivers from north India (like Mumbai/Delhi).

2. The new cab services that undercut the existing ones operating in the BIAL-city sector. Ola and Uber are named. These guys offer discounts on the "approved" fare, which the existing players don't like. Passing mention is made of the Indica guys who offer the ride for around Rs. 8 a km, and to the BIAS services of BMTC.

Some details on the economics of the cab sector too. I wasn't aware that the IT employees pay for the cab privilege (it is not a job perk), for example.

Links to the articles here

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/...ivers-few.html

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/...hed-firms.html

[aneezan]

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan

Update: monster concrete speed breaker removed on one side of dinnur road. The other one still remains but it looks like they have tried to give it a gradual rise. You might still hit it though. It needs to go or get rebuilt.

Looks like the second monster will remain. They have kind of touched it up a bit. Looks a bit smaller and a lot less scraping. However, I still don't understand why they have the yellow barricade on the road.

[naveenroy]

Well, IT companies had started charging for the cab services long back. In fact, though people work in shifts, they were forced to walk far from their homes for pickups and drops. And it added to commute time - usually around 4 hours extra. Considering that you work for 9 hours, add 4 hours to it - and you end up connected to the "Matrix" for more than half your day.

And staying true to the original topic - any updates on the Madiwala underpass? When I was going to office in the afternoon, the lane towards Silkboard was blocked off for some work. I sometimes wonder why they even made that underpass.