The city's sanction process for malls and similar complexes is at the root of the rapidly worsening problem. Traffic management does not seem to be a concern in BBMP. Palike does ask mall developers to submit a Traffic Management Plan (TMP) to the Traffic Police and get their NOC, but it is not mandatory and there is no system to ensure that this happens.
Sood however categorically says that in the last three years since he took charge, he has not received any TMPs for sanction. "Even if we receive TMPs, we cannot do much about it. Traffic police are not engineers to understand and approve building plans. BBMP should have a transport planner to do this," he says.
Further ..
BBMP officials however say that the data on traffic situation should not be difficult for the traffic police to understand, and that traffic police should shoulder the responsibility.
BBMP's Traffic Cell does not look into building plans now. "Traffic Cell is only concerned with improving junctions, creating traffic islands etc. They are not concerned with town planning at all," say Town Planning officials.
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Comments
Really good piece of work
Really good piece of work this is. Now we know what the issues are.
Town Planing dept
BBMP Traffic Engineering Cell
Traffic Police
I dont agree the mall exits needs to merge it can intersect (we anyway cant merge) but if the PCU count is high and not allow for an yield then a signal needs to be introduced.
In case of Mantri mall you will realize at their exit signal cannot be introduced because there is one within 100 meters at mill corner jn. while the PCU count justifies a signal at the exit. Even the entry needs to be metered, but in our solution we suggested metering at the intersection nearby.
So ideally someone reviewing the TMP would have advised the exit needs to be moved to a different side altogether. Clear failure to engineer the traffic.
Traffic Planning
How can we expect any thing to improve the situation when there is absolute non-coordination between the agencies and no competent engineers/ town planners with any agency?
K.V.Pathy
stake holders..
Town Planing dept, BBMP Traffic Engineering Cell, Traffic Police are all stake holders and should have enough veto powers to put a stop to any approval request!
There is no use shirking responsibility and blaming someone else for the mistakes..its their collective responsibility!
BBMP traffic engineering cell
BBMP traffic engineering cell is looking like the one caught with hand in the cookie jar.
This tells all!
IDS,
The state of affairs tells all. We have authorities sans any responisbility and accountability. Now wonder all our public utility projects just fall short before they are commissioned.
licence raj
If a developer like Mantri has land, they should be allowed to build mall of permitted FAR. Giving bbmp corporators to power to give licence then we will be going back to the era of licence raj. But shopping malls are new so no laws exist, they can make a blanket law like compulsory service lanes etc for malls and big commercial buildings like Manyata tech park.
RTI query
For whatever it's worth, I am filing a query as below with the BBMP, under RTI:
In Dec,'07, it was reported in thre press that BBMP will be demanding no-objection certificates (NOC) from the traffic police before issuing plan approvals for buildings with more than 10,000 square feet of super built-up area. Please advise how many such NOC's have been obtained for plans approved since then.
Reg: traffic halts at unspecified time due to politicians
Dear All,
I would like to raise this issue as while traveling by buses after a hectic days work at office as well as traveling time. we often see the traffic to a stand still because some politician or a VIP is passing by and this really frustrates people and they are the elected members from the people and they make us wait for 10-15 mins. They pass only in the peak hours, why can't they go like a common public.
example: yesterday (5 july) @ around 10.05 pm near BEL circle i was traveling by Vajra and the traffic was halted for 5-10 mins just for a couple of cars of of some VIP also many instances even ambulances are not spared with emergency.
Thanx
Ravichandra