Metronama, Public Transit, and Some Thoughts

During the course of writing one of my blogs, I was in the process of linking to Sahil's blog (its the one about what I lost, would not recommend reading it, its very emotional).

I ran into Sahil's blog [1]about the book he had read called Metronama [2], I believe I had ran into this book earlier, trying to find more material to read about regarding the Delhi Metro, and the Delhi Transport Corporation.

If you have met me in person (I write this knowing only one person who accidentally ran into my blog and /query-ied me about it), over the past (two?) years, especially after last year, I have developed quite a strong opinion on the Delhi Metro.

As I have told this tale to many of my friends in a comedic manner, there were two driving factor for me to abandon all hope for the metro system in Delhi which I had grown up loving:

First I had ran into articles when trying to learn more about the intricacies of the Metro while I was trying to apply to the IIHS[3] as one of their "Urban Fellows"[which is now stopped as they have begun with masters courses that I may be considering], to them, while trying to apply, I had written a """"paper"""" as I would have called it then, which talked about building up Public Transport in my home city of Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, which involve building a tram network on the old tracks of the narrow gauge "princely" and historic railway. (which I very recently learnt from very sketchy sources, did at its beginning operate as a private tramway between the several [now sub] cities of Gwalior).

Through this I ran into several articles from authors I have now forgotten [4], talking about the gentrification caused by the Delhi Metro, this horrified me, at that point I had been using the system every day to commute to college, using a small part of the Metro, which though I found exhausting, was essential to being able to start of my Bachelors (which horrifyingly enough, I am now technically near the end of).

They talked about the removal of slums, and the indignant use of all this capital as a vehicle to "redevelop" the city into a more millennium capital focused one, and if you have been to Delhi, I would argue you have experienced this exactly.

Studies proving rapid urbanisation, redevelopment of land, higher densities, more slums, rising of land rate, and all the costs of the this "urban mobility" I had previously enjoyed.

The other major incident was when I had decided on reading several blogs and articles about people using skateboard for their "last mile connectivity", to bring my under used one from my home city to Delhi, Getting off at Hazrat Nizamuddin (HZN) Indian Railways station, I began the usual journey to the Metro Station (Sarai Kale Khan Hazrat Nizamuddin) [a name I think proves less than helpful], and at the security gate, am laughed at for casually carrying it into the security point, and am asked to wrap it in something or put it in my bag, neither were real possibilities.

The Delhi Metro Rail Network, does not mention any such specification, these are rules made up on the spot by the CISF. The people in charge of these security points.

I groaned and instead for the first time, chose to exit the station to figure out where to catch a bus to get home instead, sadly due to poor signage and tiredness, I after being stared at and pestered by auto rickshaws, decided to book a share bike, and be dropped off home, but the fire had started, by a hate of what the DMRC stood for and did to the city; and them refusing to let ME ride with my skateboard ;).

My first bus ride with the DTC [really the DIMTS as I would later learn] was riding in the summers on the direct bus route from my then apartment and nearby college to Shivaji Stadium, which is the bus stop located at Connaught Place, for Korean Visa.

It has now been a year more, and I have had _some_ journeys, sticking mainly with the DTC as much as I could, even if that cost me time, or comfortable trips, or riding along with my friends.

[I may have become a bit too attached with launching a faux DTC account on Tumblr where many such existed mostly for rail services in Europe and North America, and eventually now running (I am sadly not as active as I would like to be) a Fediverse account for the DTC too, these are mostly me talking about public transit and posing as the DTC sometimes for the jokes.] [5]

All of this to say, I really enjoyed the book, I had gone in, biased, assuming the author would write up the DMRC, and its achievements and cover the pop history and culture that had developed around the Metro System, instead now, I got many interesting and touching sketches, depictions, the contradictory nature, friends I knew whose ideas were reflected, and comrades whose visions I stood behind, all in chapters of different people's exposure to a transit system.

Though I do think, a counter part covering the DTC would be nice, and I would like to wish someday I could write that, since I started riding DTC's strange and weirdly thrown together network, it has fascinated me to no end, it has taken me to weird, confusing, and history questioning places, and why I have failed to even mention any of it here is that I have not felt prepared, I still don't, but I think now is the time to write, and act. [though I would like to note, it would likely not end up being a montage of ethnographies, rather a history of the confusing system and how it got here, with some stories of my own if I wrote it right now, so I think I would rather not for now]

The DTC has changed a lot, and not much, and very much within the past 30 years, playing historian is fun hunting down its history and trying to establish timelines and causes and effects, but going further back than ~2005 I think is less relevant as to what is to come, I see the DTC, and as such the rest of the bus service providers in India, BEST for one, are at a watershed moment, as Metro systems suck up all resources and funding, these systems are being privatised and being changed to their core.

I feel especially for the DTC, the one system I have fallen into a trance with, needs to not just continue existing in a way which it did for me, but actually improve, so its weird sharp edges actually improve and hurt less people than it did me on so many occasions. And reading Metronama, clearly hurt so many others, and so much worse.

Writing this down in public on my blog, I would like to hopefully not just raise my voice by this time next year, but hopefully have successfully organised _ANY_ number of individuals towards a better state, I would hope so much for it.

And before I :wq, I would like to thank Sahil a lot for the book, although certainly a really good book I would now recommend in a heartbeat, I would never have gone out of my way to buy it, which Sahil did on my behalf when I showed interest, even if it took the both of us travelling out of this engorged city, I did get the book at a place where I was able to see an alternative, and then onto cities which didoffer me alternatives to what exists. [for all my criticisms of the Delhi Metro, I am still very much for rail based high capacity urban transit, the only problem being on both of these positions is that there exists no Indian "other" to point to, the closest as I understand it exists within the Kolkata Metro, which predating the DMRC model, forged its own path, someday I will find myself in the city and be able to verify if it ever did, or does offer an actual alternative, though the few academic studies on the topic I have found do not give much much confidence].

[1] <https://blog.sahilister.in/>

[2] <https://rolibooks.com/product/metronama/>

[3] <https://iihs.co.in/> (this one seems to be their website for the

institute, with <https://iihs.ac.in> being for the university part of their work.

[4] as I said, I have forgotten which ones I read initially, but I

essentially searched here <https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=%22delhi+metro%22+AND+%22gentrification%22> [FUCK GOOGLE SCHOLAR, PLEASE CONSIDER USING <https://core.ac.uk/> INSTEAD FOR YOUR SEARCH]

[5] <https://urbanists.social/@delhi_transport_corporation> is

the account if you are interested, hopefully with more energy, I would be doing more this year with it.