iAgree’s Theory on Traffic Woes

This blog topic has directly pressed my anger buttons. The blog is going to be skeptical all the way till the end and then end up with optimism and some self praise.

My own theory is that the traffic condition can be directly attributed to change in our priority and values in life. With growing inflow of money, not only have we become more materialistic but also indifferent to others. This indifference detoriates exponentially as the target moves from concrete entities such as neighboring driver to abstract entities like Nature/Environment.

It is definitely comfortable in car, with A/C insulating u from the outside world, with the choice of your song being played, and windows rolled down to avoid the pollution of outer world. For people who own car, even if the price of petrol doubles, it would hardly matter. They are already talking about thier second car. The comfort is just too much to loose. We have reached a point of time where the “next car” is the topic of discussion in coffee table discussions.

There is a theory floating around, that says that if we improve the pubic transport, people would move away from their own cars. However, going from my own experience in the past companies, the theory is good for coffee table discussion. We had company transport that would pick up drop employees at points few 100 meters from their residence. But it did not fly high, as many folks (mostly high paid engineers/managers) found too hard to walk such a distance. Their legs were more used to control the clutch,break and accelerator. An another crib was that it did not suit thier needs for flexi working hours. I compared this to about 12 years back, when we used to walk about 1 KM to get to our company bus and managed our time to suit the company bus timing. We had lots of fun these busses, some couples were formed and some hearts were broken, as the bus offered time to do think and do such things. But then over the the past 12 years we have had this IT boom and so has our idea about comfort/joy have changed.

There is another reason, why I am skeptical about the theory of public transport. In my own neighbor hood we started this anti plastic campaign, where in we urged people to reduce their usage of plastic, by carrying thier own bags. We even kept cloth bags at few of the shops for 5/10 Rs, so that people can buy it instead of using the plastic bags. We conducted door to door campaign about the hazarutds of plastic. But in the end, the feedback was that all things were not as comfortable/economical as a plastic bags. Environment is just too far of a concern to any one and we are ready to live with choked overflowing drains. So if we are not ready to make such a small sacrifice, doing away with private transport stands no chance at al.

Now you would see why I say my buttons have been pressed. So how do we go ahead

1. Tax the usage of cars heavily along with better transport facility. Impose huge tax on second/third car.
2. The modern day spiritual gurus take upon them selves to make people more caring about others and the environment.
3. Corporates encourage employees to use the company transport, may be some extra incentive. Currently it is the other way around, with tax concessions for buying new car.
4. Car Pool. Car pool lane (That was a joke, we need first lanes and then we can talk about car pool lane)

I have spoken about “others” in general, what about self.

1. I hate to drive my car in bangalore, and take all the opportunity to pile on with my friends.
2. Till about 4 years back, I Have cycled/walked my way to office. But then Bangalore became too cycle unfriendly.
3. I have always used company transport when it was available.
4. HOWEVER, my trips to chennai have been more on car. I love to drive on the fours lane super ways at 100 KMPH. It is just a thrilling feeling. Would I give up this for environment. Nope, this where my line is drawn

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