Are we travelling any faster ?

Last week Gurgaon office goers decided to beat the rush hour jam. They reported to office almost an hour earlier. While many companies had been experimenting with this since 2005, I guess in the last year rush hour travel has become impossible.

I remember reading some time back that the average traffic speed in Delhi has reduced by half to 20 km per hour compared to what it was 15 years back. Don't we often complain how it was easier to get to a place in a car and now it takes twice the time. So does having a car any help? Of course on the Noida toll bridge we can zip across but what after you get into the city?

Having lived in Karol Bagh my solutions to jams are different from those who travel from South Delhi. To get to CP you can still leave at 10 and not get any traffic. But to get to Green Park one either leaves at nine or eleven. That will take you 45 minutes. Else if you get caught in a jam then it might take more than an hour.

Is it possible to combine your trip with the metro and beat the traffic? Not really. I once tried getting to Khan market using the metro and then a short auto ride. The other trip I tried was to go to Mayur Vihar. You ride till the end of the IP line and then take an auto. The problem is once you hit the road the slow traffic sets you back and you hardly save time. In that sense while the metro only part of the solution. We need to declog the roads too if we have to travel faster.

There are many solutions - car sharing is one. The other is to let odd and even number cars to use the roads on alternate days. Another one is to shift all office timings in Delhi by an hour. But are we up to the challenge?