This week the Sri Lankan Police have been stopping cars to conduct a survey on traffic. Colombo actually has far less traffic than many global cities, but it’s still not good. So what to do? The survey created more traffic and was only in Sinhala, but it’s a start. There are a few obvious answers already on the table.

This is a new enclosed electric motorcycle, from Lit Motors. My dad sent me a link via the NYTimes. I’ve seen crappy enclosed trishaws but this seems different. What’s cool about this C-1 bike is that it has two gyroscopes and seems difficult if not impossible to knock over. Watch the video to see.

Halik has a great post on Upali, a professional trishaw driver. Well worth a read. With it he breaks down some of the numbers involved in the business. I’ve put the prices together to to guess how much profit they make. It’s not too much, really. Upali breaks down his basic operating expenses as follows:

Colombo badly needs middle class public transit. This is a start. This is a Micro bus (which is mad nice) plying from Kadawatha (Kiribathgoda, horror) to Kollupitiya. It’s a comfortable A/C bus, it has bookings, and it says it runs on time. This seems fairly ordinary stuff, but it isn’t. I’ve talked about the need for new buses and the resistance from some entrenched interests before. This is an example of something actually happening.

Sri Lanka’s public transit is neglected and mad messed. Generations ago they tried to fix this by privatizing buses, but there was so much rent-seeking and regulation that this also didn’t work out well. The buses are ancient, race around, and don’t serve the need.

I’m a big fan of public transit, but it’s not that cool right now, in Sri Lanka at least. This bus is cool. From Germany. This is how public transit should be. Nice seats, panoramic windows, its own lane, big and long. That’s cool. You can watch this video with or without subtitles on (the CC button). 90% of the content is communicated through sheer tone.

So I called David Peiris (Motor Company) cause I want to buy a trishaw. This was always a dream of mine but people laughed at me. Now that it’s part of a business idea, we were checking out prices. They’re actually horrific, Rs. 450,000 for a new Bajaj 4-stroke. But that’s not what really bothered me. It’s that the dealer said we’d have to pay an extra Rs. 4,300 to transport the thing from Hambantota. Why?

Traffic sucks. Sitting in traffic just feels completely unnecessary, and that’s the sort of feeling technology evolves to fix. So what will future traffic look like, in Sri Lanka especially?

I like the bus, when I can catch it. Usually. Rush hour the bus is horrendous, but there’s nothing like a nice not-full bus, sitting on the not-sunny side, listening to music, watching the city go by. And it feels damn near free, Rs. 20 max. Mounting and dismounting is a bit of an Olympic event, but besides that it’s generally chill. Unless it’s full, in which case the whole thing sucks.

What’s jaywalking in Sri Lanka? Crossing the road. I always try to find zebra crossings so I can stare down cars, but some places there are no zebras. In Dehiwela for example, there’s one crossing marked a ‘Disabled Crossing’ with sounds and stuff. Which is nice, except it’s the only ‘Disabled Crossing’ in miles. Like, a disabled person would have to walk from Colpetty to Dehiwela to cross the street. Which is to say, the policy of ‘strictly enforcing pedestrian laws‘ is a good idea impotized in a sea of bad policy.