A few months ago in the Himalayas, this was the type of traffic jam I encountered heading to Gaumakh, the source of the Ganga (Ganges) River:
As I sat in literally six hours of traffic yesterday (I mean literally six hours), I could only wish I were in some more bucolic place than the streets of Delhi. After waking up for my flight at 4am, I landed in Delhi by 8:30am and headed straight to my meeting in Noida. THREE hours later, I finally arrived. This is some people's daily commute!!
I am reminded of an article Tyler sent me: "You Only Think Your Commute Sucks" -- yet unfortunately for Delhi-ites, the commute really does suck here (rated 5th worse worldwide, after Beijing, Mexico City, Johannesburg, and Moscow... New York is a distant 17 on the IBM "Commuter Pain Index").
Looking anxiously at my watch yesterday, I asked the driver how far we were from our destination. "7-8 kilometers," he replies. I breathed a sigh of relief, until nearly one hour later, we still weren't there!
There is an incredible recent report published by the Delhi government stating that the average vehicle speed in the city has come down from 18 km per hour to 15... and that this is expected to decrease further to 5 km per hour by the end of 2011. Imagine -- sitting in a car and moving all of 3.125 miles after an hour!! -- and this is for people lucky enough to even have a car and not be exposed to monsoons, dust storms, and utter pollution! (and mind you, this time estimate is from an official government report, which one assumes to be optimistic)
Now that I'll be splitting my time between Hyderabad and Delhi, books on tape seem like an amazing investment...
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