A day in the life of a car park

We spent eight hours on a building's terrace at Connaught Place in Delhi, shooting a car parking lot. Cars kept whizzing in and out of the camera's frame like busy bees. What amazed us however, was that the occupants of all the cars put together could have fitted into a single bus.  

US mayors on climate change

More than 100 mayors of us cities congregated at Seattle on November 1-2 as part of a climate protection campaign. They sought an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions by 2050, but said that they cannot do it alone.

Opinion divided on Bangalore metro rail project

Construction work on the Bangalore metro rail project is on amid protests from environmentalists. While activists say the project will lead to further traffic congestion, officials justify the project saying it will meet the increasing number of commuters.

We don't smell the air

I smelled the air of Bangalore last week. It was foul. I remembered how in the late 1990s, when Delhi's air was dark and dirty, we had run an advertisement in the newspapers "Roll down the window of your bullet-proof car, Mr Prime Minister, the security threat is not the gun it is the air of Delhi." Since then Delhi introduced compressed natural gas, it increased the number of buses, it got better quality fuel. With all this, the air got less dirty and less toxic. But now with each passing day, the city adds just below 1,000 new private vehicles.

New York gets US $350 million to check congestion

new York mayor Michael R Bloomberg announced recently that the federal department of transport had awarded more than us $350 million to New York to implement the mayor's alternative plan to reduce traffic congestion.

Tourism plans for Andamans go on, tsunami notwithstanding

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are still seen as tourist havens, even after being ravaged by the tsunami in December 2004. The tourism policy of Andaman and Nicobar Island 2003 listed its objectives as large-scale, resource-intensive tourism, opening more islands for tourism, attracting private investment for high-end eco-tourist resorts and obtaining relaxation of the Coastal Regulation Zone (crz) rules. The model is still followed, with minor modifications, after the December 2004 disaster.

Trams back in fashion

Green and white trams will soon be ferrying passengers across Paris. The reintroduction of trams is an effort to cut down the city's growing pollution and traffic congestion. Under the initial phase of the US $570 million project, the trams will ply in an eastwest direction, on the left bank of the Seine, replacing an overcrowded bus route. The line will eventually be tripled in length under the city's biggest transport scheme since a ring road was built in 1973. It is expected to carry at least 100,000 passengers a day.

Row over Mumbai transport surcharge

the Rs 5,745-crore Mumbai Urban Transport Project's second phase (mutp-ii) for a suburban railway is facing a roadblock because the Union ministry of railways and the Maharashtra government disagree on the amount of surcharge to be levied on commuters to fund the project.

On the right track

the much-publicised mass rapid transit system (mrts) has finally been cleared by the Delhi government. According to Tejinder Khanna, lieutenant-governor of Delhi, work on the project would start as soon as this year's rainy season is over -- around October. The whole system would cost around Rs 4,800 crore.

Going overhead

tomorrow's commuters may not travel to work in cars or underground railways, but in overhead carriages 16 feet above city streets. Called System 21, it differs from the conventional light rail transport system in that the trains travel above an overhead six feet steel beam. Futrex, a transport technology company in Charleston, South Carolina, has already built a us $1.6 million (m) model of this futuristic urban transit system and plans to begin construction of a full-size prototype in the next few months.