One Year @ Bangalore

Bangalore has a terrible traffic. And its mainly because of the poor infrastructure of the city. The roads just cant handle the volumes that run on it everyday.
But given the constraints Bangalore government is not doing a very great job at managing traffic. Delhi also had some traffic problems on the ring road. And the volumes of traffic served by delhi road is much more compare to bangalore. But Delhi govt has constantly come up with new flyovers (Moolchand underpass ) and other solutions to the problems. Many argue that flyovers is not the solution. But I have seen them work quite well in Delhi.
Look at this marvel for instance from the Bangalore traffic department. It has an intersection on top. And for one half the traffic follows as "right hand drive" traffic. Its amazing how this things gets implemented. Is there no decision making body which has anyone sensible on board.
Besides there are many one-way routes. And now there is a new auto lane in place. Autos are *supposed* to ride *only* in this lane. But do they? And even if they sometimes do the argument is that its to partition "fast moving" and "slow moving" traffic. Now comes the question: WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN BY FAST MOVING?? If any of you have driven anything anywhere in rush hour in bangalore you would figure out the futility of this partition.
What they have actually done is partition the space on the road. And in places they have put up a concrete partition. The whole arrangement causes a loss of a little over 1 foot along the whole stretch of the road. And in cases where no one is driving in the auto lane it wastes the whole 10 foot lane. Add to that the commotion that is created at spots where the partition starts (which is mostly after a red light). There is a rule of thumb in traffic. Jams occur at places where you break its smoothness. At bisections. At places where two roads meet. And by putting up this partition they have created two such spots for every partition.
I am not saying that I have the perfect solution to the problem. But what I say is that whenever there is a problem I like to go to the root of it. Solve it there. Putting up hacks like these helps no one. Makes the code dirty and unmanageable. Unless you want to more items in "things you did this year" in your annual review.
Also there's another thing that the last year has taught me. Decisions should be backed by numbers. Arguments a re subjective. And that is why you can argue from both sides of an issue without arriving at a decision. Or worse arriving at a wrong decision. But numbers dont let you do that. I doubt any of the (FUTILE) changes made by the Bangalore Traffic Department had any statistics or research backing the decision.
Again another thing that I find disturbing is the amount of pollution on road. Auto rickshaws are to be blamed mostly for this. But Delhi revamped their autos to CNG with cleaner results. Bangalore may have a space problem, and *that is why* they are not building better roads. But what prevents form improving auto rickshaws is beyond me. Pollution is a very grave issues. And I know a lot of people who are allergic to dust and remain sick while they are in Bangalore.
The bottom line is. Its no longer the sweet city that I visited a couple of years ago and was so excited to come back to. I have been here for one year now and I think everything that was good about this city 3 years back has deteriorated. The only thing we couldnt screw up was the weather which still rocks. And I am still grateful for that.