Inefficiency on the road

In the backwards sequence of posts that is a blog, or the bowel movements of a self important writer, I've often been frustrated by inefficiency. As an Engineer; not that I like to define someone by employment, but an Engineer is by nature a problem solver; this 'new sin against the holy ghost' (Aldous Huxley in notes on a Brave New World) is a problem for me. One problem I see in India is toll booths, giant structures constructed with frustrating frequency along all large new roads. The need is obvious, India is too corrupt and inefficient at collecting taxes to fully fund their infrastructure. The problems are two fold, the waste of the booth (or Plaza as they are euphemistically called) and the problems of PFI. George Osborne once labelled PFI a great mistake, before adopting 'Private Investment' as his solution for British Infrastructure. It's madness, shifting the costs of public works off the books only comes back to bite future generations as companies collect costs plus profits, which typically run to far more than the cost of the original investment as any contract also has to cover risks in returns. This insanity is worse with toll roads, which have the Plazas, giant monuments to inefficiency. These are concrete barriers, which cause each vehicle to decelerate, queue and accelerate, wasting both fuel and time. In some cases they can be justified, where the goal is to tax by road usage, in a country which is not sufficiently developed to use number plate recognition (think congestion charge). But in general these are monuments to the tragedy of human nature, and it's inability to organise for the common good.

In other ways India does recognise that the state of roads is critical for it's continued development. The roads are far better than Nepal, and the roads which have toll booths are some of the smoothest and fastest in India, it's not without benefit. The toll roads typically have solid central reservations, often with trees, which cuts out some of the most frightening road experiences. Many cities also recognise the problem of encroachment (illegal building along the edges of road) and have cracked out the bulldozers amongst much protest to remove the buildings. (articles on current progress on this in Varanasi, and mob reprisals resulting in destruction of government equipment in other parts of UP). But, and there is always a but, other roads have the opposite effect. Due to the poor ability of Indian drivers, the only solution governments have is to build speed bumps everywhere, even on fast roads. Sometimes these are unmarked, imagine driving down the motorway and encountering an unmarked speed bump...