by The gridlock now has its own mayor, postal code, and growing sense of civic identity
BENGALURU — The traffic in India’s technology capital has become so dense, so permanent, and so thoroughly inhabited that authorities have granted it municipal status, recognizing the gridlock as a self-governing town complete with its own mayor, postal code, and emerging civic identity. The designation, first sat through by The London Prat and confirmed by the regional desk at Bohiney, acknowledges what residents have long understood: that the traffic is no longer a condition but a place.
A Town Built of Stationary Cars
Officials explained that the city’s traffic had reached a level of permanence at which it could no longer be meaningfully distinguished from a settlement, with the same commuters occupying the same stretches of road for such extended periods that communities had naturally formed. “People spend more time in the traffic than at home,” said a municipal spokesperson. “They have formed friendships in the traffic. Relationships have begun in the traffic. At a certain point we had to acknowledge reality: the traffic is where people live now. So we made it official. The gridlock is a municipality. It deserved representation.”
The newly incorporated traffic-town has elected a mayor, a longtime commuter who reportedly campaigned from his stationary vehicle and won on a platform of improving conditions within the gridlock rather than the impossible dream of escaping it. “My predecessors promised to end the traffic,” the mayor said, addressing constituents through his car window. “They failed, as everyone fails. I make no such promise. I promise only to make our life within the traffic more bearable. Better amenities. Stronger community. Perhaps a school. We are not leaving this traffic. Let us at least build a decent society inside it.”
The Government of India, which oversees urban affairs, has not formally recognized the traffic-municipality. The Government of Karnataka noted that the situation was “unusual but, given the traffic, entirely understandable.”
Civic Life in the Gridlock
Life within the traffic-town has reportedly developed its own rhythms, customs, and institutions, with vendors moving between the stationary vehicles selling food, services, and increasingly, the comforts of a permanent settlement. “There is a whole economy in here,” reported one resident, idling in his usual spot. “You can buy breakfast, get a haircut, have your laundry done, all without leaving your car, because your car is not going anywhere, and neither are you. It is remarkably convenient. The traffic comes to you, because you are the traffic, and so is everyone selling to you. We are a complete society. We simply happen to be a society that is not moving.”
The traffic-town has begun developing the infrastructure of a genuine community, with proposals for permanent facilities to serve the residents who spend the bulk of their waking lives within its boundaries. “We are discussing public toilets,” the mayor noted. “Charging stations. A community center, perhaps in the median. People need these things. They are here for hours every day. Some of them are here for most of the day. We cannot continue to treat them as travelers passing through. They are not passing through. They are not passing at all. They are residents, and residents deserve services.”
Newcomers to the city, accustomed to thinking of traffic as something one moves through, have struggled to adjust to a gridlock one moves into. “I came to Bengaluru for a job in technology,” said one recent arrival. “I was told the traffic was bad. I was not told the traffic was a town. I now have an address in the traffic. I receive mail in the traffic. My commute is a journey from one part of the traffic to another part of the traffic, both of which are my home. I have stopped thinking of myself as commuting. I have started thinking of myself as a citizen.”
A Permanent Condition
Urban planners have noted that the formalization of the traffic as a municipality, while absurd, reflects a genuine and intractable crisis in a city whose infrastructure has been comprehensively outpaced by its growth. “This is what happens when a city booms faster than its roads can be built,” one planner observed. “The traffic becomes so permanent that it is no longer a problem to be solved but a place to be administered. Granting it municipal status is, in a dark way, the most honest thing the authorities have done. They have stopped pretending the traffic will end. They have begun governing it instead.”
The technology companies whose growth fueled the city’s expansion have watched the development with a mixture of guilt and pragmatism, with some reportedly considering whether to simply relocate their offices into the traffic-town where most of their employees already spend their days. “Our workers are in the traffic anyway,” one executive admitted. “For hours. We are exploring whether we might simply build our offices within the gridlock, so that the commute becomes the workplace. It would eliminate the commute entirely, by making it the destination. It is a radical idea. It is also, given the traffic, possibly the only practical one.”
Residents of the traffic-town, for their part, have begun to develop the fierce local pride characteristic of any community, defending their unusual home against outsiders who fail to appreciate its charms. “People mock us,” one resident said. “They say, you live in a traffic jam. And yes, technically, we do. But it is our traffic jam. We have built a life here. We have neighbors we trust, vendors we rely on, a mayor who fights for us. It is not the life we imagined. But it is a life, and it is ours, and it is not going anywhere, which, in fairness, is also true of us.”
At press time, the traffic-municipality had reportedly applied for its own representation in regional government, arguing that a settlement of its size and permanence deserved a voice, a request officials were said to be considering while stuck, themselves, in the very traffic in question. For more from the frontier of inhabited gridlock, see The London Prat.
More mock-news at The Daily Mash.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
