Above shown picture shows that only 3 main roads namely ORR, HAL Airport Road and Old Madras Road are available for the connectivity of Eastern portion of Bangalore which hosts prestigious IT companies, International Tech Park with rest of Bangalore. These 3 main roads also is used for intercity truck traffic. Without any parallel roads due to lots of lands being acquired by defense, HAL and NAL in between, the traffic crawls. There is no other go other than using one of them - picking best of the worst.
Tech park means rich people, rich people means cars and cars means traffic. These 3 main roads are the only means to crawl to the east in the morning and back in the evening. All the cars go here uncontrolled in numbers. Shouldn't Government think of controlling them ?
Everyone knows how to control them - Congestion charges or introducing tolls. ABIDe was talking about improving the Big 10 roads - but they didn't had congestion charging in their agenda. May be because of the members using cars on these Big 10 roads. Why not start congestion charging on these 3 'important' roads and reduce the cars and allow everyone to move forward quickly instead of crawl. It may not completely eliminate the traffic, it would rather reduce the numbers atleast.
Following are the discussion points with our members on these 3 roads:
1. How can we control the cars on these roads?
2. How can we introduce parallel roads to reach there - probably?
3. How can we improve PT on these 3 roads?
4. How to improve these roads?
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Comments
More cheaper cars in the anvil
After the success of Nano, lot of other companies like Nissan-Renault Joint Venture, Bajaj Auto with Renault and another company called Ajanta Auto - a chinese company is planning for a car around 1 Lakh. Renault Nissan may give a better car too - and hence future of our roads should be strongly controlled.
Apart from this average income level and purchasing power of middle class in metros like Bangalore is increasing everyday and they want to get their long dream cars. Population inflow to Metros from tier 2 cities is also increasing due to employment opportunities being concentrated in Metros. In Bangalore, it is mainly concentrated in the East. Considering all these factors, it is very important to control the cars 'crawling' to east and 'blocking' everyone.
Need Choices - not control and Need to remove Citizen Apathy
While your point about the increasing number of cars is valid, it is but one factor. Improvement shouldnt be by "controlling" but by providing better "choices".
There are several reasons for the "crawling" you mention:
1. There are way too many junctions/intersections on those main roads. As discussed in several forums on Praja, that is one of the biggest problems, if not THE biggest one.I believe the Big10 initiative is an attempt to address this.Till last month, I did see a lot of TDR notifications but they were primarily for the Big10 roads leading to B'lore South. Perhaps other Praja members could share any info they have?
2. People absolutely DO NOT follow any traffic rules. This applies to the rich, poor, middle class - everyone in general. A true show of unity, I guess! And this is all over Bangalore, not just east.Infact the situation is such that if you were to follow rules properly, you have pretty good chances of getting hit or even ending up in an accident. So that realization needs to set in. A little bit of patience and adhering to rules could go a long way in addressing things. This is the part where we the Praja/public need to take part in improving the situation, not just leave it to the other guy on the road to follow rules.
3. Why create new roads and introduce more traffic on the roads? This is where the proposed Metro, Mono and Commuter Rail system (CRS) are supposed to bridge the mobility gap.
4. the illegal parking on the main roads. In most layouts in Bangalore, one lane is lost to parked taxis, autos, private vehicles. The situation is so bad that there is blatant parking right under a "No Parking" sign. This is where the locals also need to take interest and work with their traffic police.
and lots more...discussed in several other posts and forums in Praja.
So my point is, while there are initiatives (Metro, Mono, CRS, Big10) to address the problems we face, we, the people, need to be more conscious of our role in improving our local community and act accordingly. WE need to abide by rules and WE need to keep checking on how things are progressing and WE need to participate in the local elections and related community activities.
Additional Roads
In addition to Old Madras Road and Old airport road, Kaggadasapura main road and BEML Gate-Vignan nagar road can be widened to reach the ORR.
Kaggadasapura road is almost connected to ORR at mahadevapura but it has a Level crossing and shabby roads after DRDo 2nd Phase which pose problems during Peak hours. Road after DRDO 2nd phase to Mahadevapura ORR needs widening. This can connect to ITPL/EPIP via Mahadevapura ( HP office backside)
BEML Gate-Vignan nagar road is widened recently and Roads near Basava nagar is being marked for widening till ADE gate. But this road has zigzag connectivity to reach ORR at Donnekkundi which can be widened via HAL Quarters. THis road has connectivity to ITPL/EPIP via Chinnapanahalli Railway gate - Graphite India backside road.
These two alternate roads can free up KR puram (tin factory) and HAL Market/marthahalli load a bit.
Without Control Not Possible to Reduce Traffic Volume
Without control, I don't think there is any possibility to reduce the traffic volume. As I said earlier, there average income level of people is high and the tendency to use car is more. Irrespective of the infrastructure, unless the volume is controlled, nowhere we will be able to solve the long travel to the eastern Bangalore. California for example is having such wide roads and best of the infrastructure, but, due to the sheer volume of cars, traffic is slow moving since the density of population is high and concentrated in few areas. Same will be the case here.
Lessons from London needs to be followed like congestion charges.