Many of India's pedestrian crossings have been criticised for not actually leading anywhere. this particular crossing ends against a landscaped and fenced-in traffic island. Photo courtesy of World Highways reader BK Roy.
March 14, 2012
Read time: 1 min
Many of India's pedestrian crossings have been criticised for not actually leading anywhere. this particular crossing ends against a landscaped and fenced-in traffic island. Photo courtesy of World Highways reader BK Roy.
All around the world, vehicle numbers are growing fast and existing roads are seeing increasing congestion. This rapid increase in vehicle ownership is particularly acute in the developing world. Reductions in actual vehicle purchase costs have resulted in an explosion in vehicle numbers using the roads.
In the past, governments were able to fund road expansion programmes from their own sources. The most ambitious of these came when the US Government commenced construction of the Interstate system in 1956,
At the end of 2008 and the start of 2009, the world's banking system spiralled into crisis, triggered by a series of catastrophic blunders caused by bankers trying to create money from nothing. The result was to plunge the world's economy rapidly into recession. Having proved in effect that lead cannot be turned into gold, the bankers retired on fat pensions leaving governments to pledge huge sums to the banks and fill in the financial gaps.
Max Lay discusses how congestion has posed problems throughout history from early civilisation to the present day One of the earliest known human settlements was at the Springs of Elisha at Jericho. Inevitably, locals collecting fresh water from the springs would encounter other water carriers. When a path was too narrow, or access to it was too limited, or it crossed another path, some carriers would find it necessary to stand aside for others. Priority in such cases might be based on common courtesy and p
India’s road safety record is the world’s worst but there are plans to tackle the problems. Patrick Smith reports from New Delhi. A speeded up video of a short section of road in the Indian capital Delhi was followed by a question. “How many infringements did you count in that 25-second clip on a typical day in Delhi,” asked Dr Rohit Baluja, a question that brought understandable silence. It equated to hundreds of millions of infringements each year, said Dr Baluja, president, Institute of Road Traffic Educ
