Keep your eyes on the road, ...

... your hands upon the wheel. Thus spake Jim Morrison and little did he know how apt it would be for Hyderabad roads. After 2 painful months of traffic jams, diversions, debris on the roads, 36 (I think) roads in Hyderabad are double in size and freshly laid. Shops and houses were bought over and torn down to make space for the expansion. Saw some of the largest houses in the city lose part of their lawns, shops losing their front doors. It has brought in a lot of new issues, though which call for much more attentive driving, but good things first.

The drive from my house to my work-place (Madhapur to Gachibowli, for those who recognise these addresses. For those who don't, it's about 10.5 kms of extremely curvaceous road) used to take 17 minutes, best time. This stretch had an S shaped curve and one night, coming back from work, I just kept going straight and kinda lost track of where I was..... They had by-passed the 'S' with a completely new road. They had removed the biggest bottleneck on the entire route and without blocking the flow of traffic during the entire process. Street lights came on, lanes were painted (just in time for the Congress meet) and it now takes me 11 minutes average. That's saying a lot, considering the distance hasn't really changed.

This holds true for a large part of the city