There will be a protest in Malleshwaram on 5th June (Sunday). It is happening due to the following reasons:
-
Widening of Sampige Road without any public consultation
- Short-sighted planning of the widened road as the road already leads to a bottle-neck of railway bridge
- Slums in a colony around the railway bridge who could lose their homes with no prior information, request for consent, etc.
-
Widening of Sankey Road in a stealthy manner
- The proposed plan is to demolish part of a school, encroach into Sankey Tank (one of the few remaining lakes in Bangalore)
- Lots of huge heritage trees could be sacrificed, using the wrong justification of wider roads = no traffic congestion (which is far from the truth)
Protest will start in front of Mantri Mall at 8 AM and we will walk to Bhashyam Circle (Sadashivnagar) to raise awareness among the people.
Kindly circulate this (sorry for the short notice), so that we can have enough strength in numbers to force BBMP to realise their folly.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/166049/development-eat-up-sankey-road.html
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIBG/2011/06/01&PageLabel=2&EntityId=Ar00204&ViewMode=HTML
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIBG/2011/06/04&PageLabel=2&EntityId=Ar00200&ViewMode=HTML
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIBG/2011/06/04&PageLabel=2&EntityId=Ar00201&ViewMode=HTML
p.s.: I am not joining because I am out of town, trying to help as best as I can :(
Attachment | Size |
---|---|
malleshwaram_protest_june05.doc | 168 KB |
Comments
The cesspool of bad governance
Sanjeev, Srinidhi & myself (usual supects) from the Praja gang were at Mantri Square Mall. If anybody else from this forum were there we didnt spot you so please give a shoutout here.
Lot of school kids from Stella Maris showed up as they will be the worst affected by the sankey road widening. Apparently the cars will be whizzing past their windows post widening making the place unfit for a center of learning. Commr Siddiah visited the group at sankey park, heated arguments & shouting broke out. Some supporters of the local MLA who were pro widening started making wild accusations hurling abuses at the people gathered in an effort to create a ruckus & create a commotion. Looks like the elected reps want to widen the roads at any cost.
What seems to be missing in all the tu-tu mein-mein is that people are not complaing about the volume of traffic on the roads, they are only complaining of the jams caused due to indiscipline & bad engineering. It reminds me of what Krishna Byre Gowda once said in one of our events quite some time ago. A lot of congestion can be solved if we know how to manage & maximize the existing road bandwidth before we think of adding bandwidth. I can liken it to increasing the width of your water pipes with the blockage untouched instead of clearing the blockade in the pipe & streamlining the flow. Today there is improper lane marking, inadequate road signage & gross indiscipline causing all of the jams/pileups.
The destruction being planned by BBMP across the city is purely to cover up their incompetencies in the area of traffic engineering. Who pays the price? Our children!
Most elected representatives, instead of pushing for a clear understanding, are on the take from mafia & lobbies. The kind of governance we get is directly proportional to the quality of the people we vote into power. Till the masses change this we will continue to live in a cesspool.
We also presented the initial draft of the traffic re-routing plan compiled from the discussions on Praja. It will be reworked a little more & sent to CAF for taking up with BBMPP commissioner
PS- Updated report with improved illustrations 7-Jun-11
Malleshwaram Mantri Mall Traffic Rerouting Plan
road widening not the solution
When will the planners in our cities realize that road widening is NOT THE solution? It won't be the solution now or in the future. As IDS has pointed out the existing roads have to be utilized to the maximum bandwidth available. What i have noticed is that many Bangalore roads are wider than roads in London and Paris but unfortunately road surface utilization in Bangalore is much lower than those cities. This lower utilization is due to encroachments and bad urban planning combined with lack of enforcement of byelaws & of course indisciplined drivers, irresponsible parking etc.
I think here are some simple solutions that must first be attempted -
1) In every 500 or 600m distance, acquire land and build a parking structure (this is the urban planning component). For road widening we would have to any way acquire land right?...which would ultimately lead to a wider road with the same traffic jam. But, this way we at least are providing parking facilites for people and taking parked vehicles off the roads.
2) Instead of widening roads, widen the usable footpath..if we can't widen them at least let's not reduce the width of what is there. IF we still do widen the road then the additional space should be used for a BUS ONLY lane.
3) Most importantly we absolutely need to have bus only lanes along the major arterial roadways. Folks may argue there isn't enough space and the roads are not wide enough but i disagree.
ROAD WIDENING IS NOT THE SOLUTION!
Rude MLA
The protesters met MLA but claimed that he was ‘not receptive’ to their demands to stop the Palike plans for a signal free corridor along Sankey Tank road.
Meanwhile, in response to the protesters queries over the Sampige Road widening project and the possible felling of 36 trees along the stretch, Narayan and the Commissioner have said they will not cut any trees on that stretch.
source
DULT Sankey tank road widening DPR
exit needs to be one lane too
@sathya
The plan to make one entry lane dedicated to Mantri is good..however was thinkin if we need to make one lane exit too..so that the pressure on the merging lane is controlled
..so guess this will mean that there is a need for only one toll counter for cars working instead of the current 2..
This one finds its way to the
This one finds its way to the press also
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/169944/sampige-road-move-minus-long.html