VIZAG matters - Sohan Hatangadi's Blog

Vizag's public transport challenge The bulk of city commuters are those who have to go to work or study every day, six days a week. Driving or riding ourselves gives us some flexibility, plus the air conditioning in the car in summer is indispensable. But still negotiating the unpredictable traffic and lack of parking space is a real pain in that point nearest to our centre of gravity. If you take a motorbike or scooter to commute, the cacophony, heat, smoke and the ubiquitous black dust will make you age faster. Who would want to suffer this if good quality public transport was available easily whenever we wanted it? RTC  buses Office goers, factory workers, teachers and professionals from all walks of life use our RTC bus services. Students travelling to schools and colleges get concessions and though the busses are crowded they are transported quite quickly and economically. More than 100 bus routes crisscross our city from six depots carrying lakhs of people each ...

Vizag’s roads are getting crowded by the day and what with frequent VIP visits it is never easy to keep our roads incident free. Our traffic police have a challenging job of keeping control without being overbearing. Generally speaking our drivers too are not over aggressive. They don’t go crazy with road rage, fifteen year old industrialist’s children in BMWs do not rampage around our streets and drunken actors don’t mow down labourers sleeping on pavements. They don’t show the finger, or wave their fists. In fact there is very little abusive language coming out of cars these days - with the air-conditioned and the windows up we just can’t hear them anymore. It is true that we Vizagites have a couple of stiff ones before heading home amiably from the belt shop and pay our fines quietly when caught by the ever vigilant police. While there is no empirical study Vizag drivers and riders are a civilized lot. However our city roads and our motorists have some remarkable eccentricities th...