Trafsickgnal !

What do you think will happen to Cochin, once the city acquires the Smart City status ? I believe the city will have to work hard to try not to make the name look like a paradox.

OK, people who live or have been to Kerala, and here I really do mean people who have actually seen Kerala in the real sense, will know that its not a cake walk to TRAVEL in Kerala , as often the way it is shown in the media. And it became a strong conviction, when couple of days ago, I was driving my Mom to her office in the morning. Usually she goes by bus, but it was a bus strike on that day. Ha !

Now, when you hear about a bus strike in Kerala, early that morning, you really don't know whether its elation of driving around safely in the city or the fear of getting stuck in a traffic jam, thats gonna grapple you more. Well, when I reached few meters away from the Station Kavala Bypass Junction, I couldn't see anything other than a huge traffic block. My first reaction, though not aloud, was to dismiss it as a usual block that would clear away in sometime.

After around 10 minutes of patient waiting, I realized, the thing was more sinister than it looked few meters away from the signal. There at the signal, a school bus and two buses of the Kerala State Transport had blocked vehicles going in all four directions from the junction. Naturally, I cursed the bus drivers who are usually rash around this part of the state. Well, the chaos began to ensue for another 20 minutes. I could see how helpless all the other drivers were.

It was then, reality struck me. Few truck drivers had got out of their vehicles and taken the role of the traffic cop; the whole episode was due to the negligence of the traffic police as they hadn't even bothered to turn up on a rainy Friday morning at the peak hour of traffic !!

I've been to other cities and have even driven around, but one thing different about the traffic jams I've noted there is that, most often it is just because of the sheer number of the vehicles there and the number of unnecessary traffic signals, at each kilometer stop. The negligence from the side of the cops is something more serious and poses a graver threat on the city's capabilities in handling traffic.

You wouldn't want things as these to be clubbed with the Smart City tag in news paper headlines and ruin the whole image of the city. People would start asking, "OK if this is what happens in a "Smart City", what can we expect of the other smaller cities ?"

The shift of focus of the IT industries and BPOs aren't quite enough for a city to be called Smart. I think, we have a long way to go ahead, in maintaining good roads, traffic rules and equipping the city with more facilities, before we say the city is actually Smart. The short future looks bleak; but I don't deny the fact that, if more educated minds can think of a solution to all these minor blemishes, in years to come, the prospect of Cochin becoming an actual Smart City is quite promising.

Peace,

$ur