Road Widening Hits Road Block - PIL

Corporators and MLAs simply put their agenda as road widening and at the cost of trees and even houses without thinking what is the bottleneck now, what is the root cause and how it can be eliminated.

Root cause is the increase in the number of cars and bad driving habits. Solution needs to be found out for that rather than widened roads which again will be occupied by cars. Width of the traffic will increase and length will decrease.

There are ofcourse very narrow roads in some places, but, oneway and preventing HTV traffic there is the only answer. And few needs to be made pedestrain/cycle only zone such as Avenue road. Goods to be transferred to the shops needs to be transported by cycles as it was done in older days instead of bringing trucks or Goods Auto inside the Avenue road.

Elimination can be done by developing effective public transit and peenalizing for using cars especially wide cars and SUVs.

Well, not surprisingly, our short-sighted administrators should be enlightened as to how important it is for us to retain our trees for future generations and to protect the climate which Bangalore was once renowned for.

May I suggest that we collate all the material that we have been discussing here, viz -
1. Focus on Mass transportation, get more people out of their cars
2. Planning of Bus Stops at proper locations
3. Improve and make BMTC efficient using TTMC model etc
4. Reclaim side lanes abutting footpaths by making them usable
5. Strict enforcement of Lane discipline and other traffic rules, more powers to Traffic police, re-org traffic dept. etc
6. Pedestrian Skywalks can prevent jaywalking and disturbing traffic flow
7. Improving Intersections thru' redesign and signal-free corridors

Then we prepare a draft of the multi-pronged approach and present it to different bodies such as BBMP, BDA, BMTC, Forest Dept., KSPCB etc.

I am sure someone out there in those agencies is thinking about this, but since this is a long tem solution and will take time to show results and maybe even span multiple governments in power, no one wants to implement it.

It is imperative to resist local MLA's, corportators and administrators desires to use funds for mindless road-widening.

Let ESG and Mr. Saldhana use PIL while we could use less confronting ways to convince them about what is right and what is not.

I had raised this point in another blog - but here goes anyway.

The left most lane on most roads remains underutilized as Bangaloreans don't know know what nasty surprises are in store for them there - stumps of trees, mud, stones, manholes, etc.  Drive on JC Road or Kanakapura Road and you will see this behaviour for yourself.  Most people drive leaving at least 6-8 ft from the pavement (where it exists) or from the edge of the road.

It might be far more cost effective to remove impediments to usage of the left lane and then draw a straight yellow line  (not the ones that the BTP currently draws which follow the contours of the tree trunks, etc) so that people can drive inside (w.r.t the median) this yellow line freely.

Some of the road widening is simply mindless.  Take the stretch of Airport Road just after Domlur (driving towards MG Road) - there was absolutely no need to widen it as the road further ahead narrows down significantly. 

Srivathsa

People living in and around Jayanagar know how wonderful it is to walk on the Nanda theatre (4th Main) road.  Even on a hot day at 1:00 p.m. one can walk without feeling the heat.

Road widening makes life worse for pedestrians in many ways

a. During the widening itself, the pavements are made non-existent and the road sides are uneven.  In the dark this is a serious hazard.

b. Trees are cut.  People in cars don't feel the heat as much as they have the option of putting on the A/c.  Pedestrians suffer.

c. They then have to cross an even wider road which makes the trip even more hazardous.

d. The footpath is left at a bare minimum.

Where does that leave pedestrians especially senior citizens and children among them?  I fully support this PIL as it is truly in the interest of the public.

Srivathsa

Atleast areas such as Indiranagar's CMH Road are with people who do not usually take to sabotage and vandalism.

In Rajajinagar's Mahakavi Kuvempu Road (MKK Road) - the road that stars from Navrang Theatre to Malleswaram Circle (KC General Hospital), the small shopkeepers sabotage and remove all construction materials erected by Navayuga Ltd, the contract for namma metro.

There are lots of vested intersts which want buses only throgh that route because most of the bus stops are located close to their shops. 

Apologies. The first time around I ended up creating a new thread when I actually wanted to reply to Naveen's comment about engaging with Hasiru Usiru/ESG.

We at Hasiru Usiru are convinced that we cannot address this problem with feeble numbers or a PIL alone. The need of the hour is a show of strength: i.e. we need to demonstrate to the concerned parties that there is a large number of people in Bangalore who believe this city is headed down the wrong path (indiscriminate road widening is one major issue, but not the only one).

While activities like the PIL are crucial, there are a host of other things that need to be done in order to save the city from become a traffic induced urban disaster zone. Examples include active engagement with govt officials, public protests, research into alternative transport policies, qunatitative evaluation of the impact on tree cover, etc).

To this end, Hasiru Usiru has started work on a campaign called "Namma Raste" to work towards a sustainable, people-centric approach towards developing Bangalore's road infrastructure. We are in urgent need of action-oriented volunteers to work on various aspects of this campaign. Hence, I urge people on this forum to attend Hasiru Usiru meetings. These meetings are providing concerned Bangaloreans an opportunity to take concrete steps to secure a brighter future for this beautiful city.

To subscribe to the HU mailing list, please visit

http://groups.yahoo.com/g...

http://www.hasiruusiru.org (this is a rudimentary website that is under construction, where some information is available under the "blog" section about recent activities.

Finally, we at Hasiru Usiru would be really keen on understanding the opinions of folks like ramesh_mbabu, so let me take this chance to extend a direct invitation to him to stop by and voice concerns face to face. If Hasiru Usiru/ESG/Praja are to have areal positive impact on this city, the onus is on us to understand the mix of opinions that are out there .

as far as clogged roads go there are two major reasons for it. One is jammed junctions and the other is stalled vehicles..

For stalled vehicles all we need is a tow truck..I dont know why we still dont have one and the monsoons have come!

The second is clogged junctions. This is the major cause for all congestion..I think all junctions in Blr need to be redesigned and improved. Even if this means acquiring properties and bringing structures down. better designed junctions is the only way to solve congestion in blr.

For instance traffic police like they always do being reactive..have stopped right turn of vehicles coming from the ring road(from intel) towards whitefield. This is a good move but they have shifted the bottleneck from marathalli bridge to the congested market further down where these vehicles try to make a U-turn. They have these U-turn junctions manned  during peak hours.

But what happens is one SUV or a sedan does not have enough space to make the Uturn as the radius is too small! Sometimes the matter is made worse when busses start turning!

All that needs to be done is to have more organized way to make u-turns..'wait for your trun' way. This way with few changes much help can be done to both the vehicles turning as well as the ones moving straight!

Around 10 were cut or destroyed, not on these developed private property, but all those were on the road side, healthy full grown trees. The only "PUBLIC INTEREST" for cutting them were the commercial value of the new/rennovated buildings [Accessibility, Visibility & Free parking space made available], but there were no crocodile tears for those trees.

Ramesh.

Exactly Naveen! I am a member of HU, and whenever I have noticed any tree felling activity, I have tried to intervene. But, what's happening today is that the forest officers attached to the BBMP are issuing permissions very easily, and the jobs are being undertaken in a very professional manner, literally overnight, before anyone even gets a scent of the activity. It has been contained to some extent by filing RTI applications, etc. I myself have filed a few. Perhaps more of these can act as deterrents.

The youngsters amongst the HU are a very committed, genuine and passionate lot. They are not against development, but they are questioning the development path. They certainly have a valid point of view.

The Valley School incident and HU are not directly connected.

Muralidhar Rao

Dear Ramesh,

We can all go crazy trying to hypothesize the real motivation behind the PIL. I could argue that the point you make about "if the news reports these days are to be believed" is the real issue, and the lack of integrity in today's journalism is what has led you to question the motivation behind the PIL. But this gets us nowhere, since you will obviously have some counter argument.

The basic point I want to make is : this train of thought is useless, since it is limited to guesswork & theories. The only *real* thing here is the PIL itself. I would strongly suggest that we take the effort to actually read the PIL and judge its motivation from its content alone.

If you don't have the inclination towards reading it, please consider attending one HU meeting to see for yourself the integrity and sincerity of those who are backing this initiative.

Regards.