Being in traffic and nothingness

BEING in traffic & NOTHINGNESS
Bangaloreans spend many minutes doing nothing, thanks to traffic.
The Times of India

HOW much time do you spend ‘getting nowhere’ or ‘doing nothing’ but ‘waiting’ in traffic? If you added up all the time all Bangaloreans waited at signals or at traffic jams every day, it would be a phenomenal number of hours. BT asked just four people, who commute long distances, to note down the number of minutes they spent doing nothing during their crawl to work or home. That was telling enough.

Shivaram H, a corporate professional, travels from Mysore Road to Whitefield daily, an arduous journey. “I do nothing for 15-20 out of the 75 minutes on the company bus. The KR Puram bridge is the first bad spot: 2-3 minutes there invariably. Next, the Old Madras Road-BEML junction, the road’s so bad, traffic slows down: 5 minutes. Then, Corporation Circle: 5-6 minutes because of two signal lights and heavy traffic. Next, at the end of Sirsi Circle flyover: 2-3 minutes, jammed because three roads meet. The next one km on Mysore road upto the KSRTC bus stand takes 10 minutes.”

Annapoorna Rao, a software professional, travels 25 km from Rajajinagar to Electronic City. “I spent 23 minutes last Friday, doing nothing on the bus, and it was a good day! If I catch the 6.15 pm bus home, I reach by 8 pm, but on a bad day, it can be 8.45 pm. If the 7.15 pm, the earliest is 8.40 or 9 pm.

Generally, the bad stretch is four km on Hosur Road before the Central Silk Board junction. She loses several minutes here. The next bad spot is after Madivala. The next four km after that take 25 minutes. The bus passes Corporation Circle and into Majestic area. This stretch takes 10 minutes. The entrance into Malleswaram takes 15 minutes.

Husband Purushotam Somayaji, a techie, who travels from Rajajinagar to ITPL, says travel time’s decided by
the bus you take. “If you take the later bus, the delay grows exponentially. The 7.30 am bus takes an hour, the 8.30 one takes an hour and a half.” From ITPL, all’s fine until he hits the KR Puram bridge, followed by the BEML junction. Besides the road being bad, trucks park any which way and narrow the road space (10 minutes lost here). It’s not so bad in the city, he adds.

Tripura Holla, a professional from the garment industry, shuttles between offices near Hosur Road and Koramangala on work and invariably sits twiddling her thumbs during jams. “It’s only a 30-minute commute in the mornings, which also makes for allowances for waiting time, as all the employees are picked up one by one. But the same distance could take an hour or an hour and a half at peak time. On Saturday, the initial 2 km were smooth sailing, but the next 1 km took 10 minutes. After that, trucks had blocked the service road, so we lost 15 minutes there. Usually, the bus takes a shortcut through HSR Layout, but the roads are so bad, you don’t really save any time. “

What do commuters do when traffic stalls? Tripura says they chat on the mobile, read magazines or just sleep, specially at the end of the day. As far as possible, she finishes work at one office by five so she’s spared the rush hour traffic.

Shivaram either sleeps or chats through the ride. Mornings, he reads the newspapers. “People listen to music. Some seats face each other. So sometimes, a small group has a knowledge sharing session for 15 minutes- half an hour — may be about the training session they had that day.”

Purushotam says he sleeps through the travel home. “It’s best to sleep. Otherwise, you feel frustrated and reach home in a bad temper.”

Annapoorna says 60 per cent of her companions sleep, 20 read, 15 per cent chat on the mobile or SMS.
Quality of life? What’s that?