Should have built one more lane
this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2025
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Maybe a tunnel to go under the highway??
Get rid of those damned bike lanes in a totally different part of the city too!
I may be misinformed, but I have the impression that India one of those countries where owning a car and driving is seen as a status symbol. Once you are able to afford a car, you don't want to be seen using the train with the paupers.
So while the public transportation system is extensive in many Indian cities, people will still choose to commute by car and be stuck in endless traffic.
There's a simple solution for this: Make public transport more expensive, until owning a monthly ticket and taking the bus is considered a status symbol again.
This already exists - Metro systems are usually much more expensive than bus / suburban rail, so 'posh' people use them. Some suburban trains also have a 'First Class' compartment.
Usually as in "Usually in India"? Because where I'm from, I've never heard of Metro being more expensive than bus or suburban rail. On the contrary, as ticket prices are often determined per distance travelled, suburban rail will usually be more expensive.
The class system on the other hand does exist here.
Yes. In India rail (both suburban and unreserved inter-town) is the cheapest - about a rupee per 4 km, rounded up to the nearest 5 or 10. Even reserved (sleeper) train tickets are quite cheap - about a rupee per 2 km. But only big cities have suburban rail.
Bus is next, the rates vary a lot from state to state, but you can expect to pay over a rupee per km. They operate everywhere, even in small towns and most villages.
Metros are air-conditioned and have automatic doors, security cameras, etc., and are the most expensive, something like 2-10 rupees per km depending on city and distance.
Or add a first class that is luxurious.
Actually, you are correct. And I absolutely despise driving, so I am pretty much a contrarian in India.
Not anymore. Chandigarh, a capital city of 2 states in India, has more cars registered than the total population (there are multiple reasons for that).
Almost every household in the national has at least one hatchback. Many people are also copying Americans, now, like buying small trucks, just for showing off.
Bangalore has more registered cars than people living there as well, IIRC. And it's worse there because Chandigarh is Atleast a planned city ( the only planned one India built from scratch post Independence) but Bangalore mushroomed exponentially after the IT boom of 90s.
As for Gurgaon, it's tragedy that only a small circular Rapid Metro runs there. Rest of Delhi has Atleast multiple lines.
Both things can be true at the same time
While cars may have come down in price (or wages gone up) to the point where the average person can reasonably afford one, people can still view a car as a status symbol because historically it was expensive to obtain. That combination would result in utterly congested roads.
Transit is packed too; it’s not that it isn’t also at maximum rider capacity much of the time. There’s just a lot of people.
Yes, more buses are needed
If only train technology had been invented.
I guess we could try adding another lane or two, that should just about do it
Indian cities pretty much all have pretty terrible urban planning. It stems from deep-rooted corruption, no long-term vision in the government, among many other factors.
I would imagine that first responders in that city have an extremely high turnover rate.
Gurgaon is the shittiest, most soulless city of India
Looks like the 401
It looks so pretty!
It also looks highly inefficient
this is supposed to be the most elite city in India.
Mumbai disliked that.
so is the work commute over in time for their next shift?
That looks awful, but to be fair I have been driving on Highway 401 at the end of a long weekend (I'm usually going in the opposite direction, thank God), and the slowdowns start about 100 km from Toronto.
In Japan, on holidays like Golden Week, you sometimes get an entire highway, 75 km or more, stopped.
Its like two beautiful streams of light flowing beside each other. I wonder how many folks passed away in that.
The weird thing is the few lanes going right that are actually flowing normally. I guess the jam in that direction is all people trying to exit? The flowing sparse traffic looks out of place with all the jams around it.
From what I understand, this is supposed to be the most elite city in India.
In developing countries, trees of high rise buildings and skyscrapers, and veins of crisscrossing motorways are the sign of modernity. While developed countries had a headstart and thus experienced how bad this kind of city design is, many poorer countries are still just catching up and they see what US and other Western countries look like on the media and tell themselves "we will be like that".
If you pay close attention each lane has cars bright lights in one direction and red tail lights in the other direction!
That's crazy!