This chap here, won himself a free trip to Lavasa!

Just a few answers shy of a trip to ZURICH!!! (apparently the top-best-ultimate city in the world!)

To those of you who might be saying “so what”…..

(sour grapes huh?)

Here’s what the viewing from Lavasa is like!

So, how did Mr. Surinder Singh, manage to get himself a free two night stay, at Lavasa?

He turned in a few good solutions to a very common problem, one we all face -

living in over -crowded, polluted, congested…. (all adjectives apply here) city!

But instead of grumbling about it (like most of us) he thought about how his city; Mumbai, could be changed and sent in his ideas to the Times of India, Future Cities campaign -and voila!

He’s heading to Lavasa, all expenses paid.

So… let’s take a look at what some of his suggestions were…

When asked : How can the transportation system in Mumbai be made more efficient? - Mr. Singh had these things to say….

As citizens we need to realise that the transportation system can only improve if we take initiatives to ease the traffic problems. Here are a few points that will further elaborate my point.

1. All pedestrians should follow traffic rules. (yes of course – and I would add – so should those in vehicles)
2. The traffic cops should direct the pedestrian traffic towards subways and sky-walks even if that requires imposing a strict fine. People still use highways to cross over from east to west without realising that it could prove fatal.
3. We should pool in for petrol charges and use one car that accommodates four instead of using four cars that not only takes up more space but also causes pollution. (car pooling – yipee!)
4. We need bus lanes or bus rapid transit systems so that the buses do not slow down moving traffic. (er… where would these lanes go ??!! There’s already no space to widen roads)
5. The traffic police should create certain vehicle free zones in open areas surrounded by parks etc. (hmm… yes yes, I like this one)
6. Corporate houses should encourage people to use cycles and provide their executives with cycles too. Some of the best-planned cities abroad see hundreds of people biking around. We need to inculcate the walking and cycling culture here as well. (what about all those office go-ers who are overweight – can’t imagine them agreeing to peddle their way to work)

7. Mumbai requires elevated outer ring roads on Bandra-Worli sea link (at least 4-5 such links required) – Now this seems like a nice original idea! would have been really cool, if he’d sent in a visual of what this would look like
8. East-West transition and vice-versa is major cause of congestion and causes traffic snarls. ( yes, duh! – pointing out the obvious here)
9. Road and rail repair work should only be carried out at night in order to avoid the chaos caused by unfinished work. (yes please !- metro folks are you listening?)

10. Newspapers and news channels should be informed about all sorts of repair work going to be held so that they in turn can create awareness and stop the commuters from taking a particular route during the repair work.( er… Mr. Singh, there’s currently work going on every and anywhere in Mumabi city, its a nightmare to get anywhere.)

So, I know he got a prize and all, but I’d rate his ideas as say … maybe – seven on ten.

What do you think of this chap’s ideas that won him the Times prize? How would you rate him? and do you have a winning idea that you never penned down?

share away….

and watch this space to know what other prize winners had to say. More, coming up…

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 2:21 am and is filed under City Planning, Eco-friendly cities, Environment, Events, Future Cities, Live, Work, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.