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Alternatives to Road-Widening

14 July 2010 - 1:39pm — pdk

This post is in response to criticism that road-widening critics haven't provided alternatives to widening.

Two things.

1. Sorry for the extreme illustration, but suppose I find someone committing a murder. I'm not sure that I have to provide an alternative to him and only then try to stop him.

2. I think the people mentioned above have suggested various alternatives. The 'people' say that the problem is a unsustainable number of private vehicles on our roads. Following from that, they have likened road-widening to 'loosening the belt to cure obesity' and recognised that it is a unworkable response to traffic congestion. They have provided following alternatives to resolving traffic congestion. None of these may help by itself. But some combination of them should be tried. The list has been made from the following sources:

SBC's Convention invite

The Solution - CyBaNa

Stupidity of road widening

Summary of Praja CRS Report - Namma Railu

13 July 2010 - 5:07pm — idontspam

Here is an overview of the Praja Report on CRS, titled "Namma Railu".

Decongestion of Bengaluru is a burning issue facing the administrators today. With the kind of visibility Bengaluru has in the international arena and the role India is going to play in the world of the future, it is important for both central and state governments to sit up and take notice. Ignoring the long term mass transport needs of the city can backfire on the country. The economy of any city thrives on availability of good quality labor at affordable cost. Expensive housing and increased travel times only put more pressure on productivity of human capital. This may ultimately lead to flight of capital and hurt the economy with cascading effect.

Three new flyovers will decongest Sarjapura Road

12 July 2010 - 12:17pm — Sanjeev

Hope this will bring down some traffic problem on ORR.

Commuting on Sarjapura Road is set to become a smooth affair as three flyovers are ready to be inaugurated on the thoroughfare anytime next week. The first flyover is located at Iblur Junction, while the second flyover is at Agara. The third flyover is an extension of the Agara flyover,

Iblur flyover will be a signal-free stretch and it will make the movement of vehicles to Silk Board Junction on Sarjapur Road faster.

Vehicles can now take the main road instead of taking service roads and cross roads and this will also ease the traffic movement towards Koramangala, Sarjapura Road, Marathahalli and Outer Ring Road.

Bangalore Development Authority officials said that there would be some bus lanes and grade-level roads dedicated to the Iblur flyover as it was a part of three-flyover interlink.

http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/report_three-new-flyovers-will-decongest-sarjapura-road_1407322

sanjeev

BMTC and Corruption

12 July 2010 - 12:01pm — admin

Lot of posts and comments on bad practices around tickets, and possibility of organized corruption inside BMTC around Bus operations. Some say that pilferage levels are too high, though there is no real data to either show the level of pilferage, or compare with estimates from transportation companies.

Walking in Bangalore - Amenities for Pedestrians

12 July 2010 - 9:00am — admin

Too much stress on road width for vehicles has eaten up pavements and encorachment of pavements for purposes other than walking is also on the rise. Talk of signal free corridors etc also means bad news for those who regularly cross these roads.

This wiki/book is to hold together references and popular discussions on pedestrian infrastructure in Bengaluru.

BBMP and Road Widening

12 July 2010 - 8:19am — admin

Most aware citizens say that widening roads to fight traffic congestion is like buying larger clothes to fight obesity. BBMP and some others feel that some arterial roads are choked, and road widening is a must.

Such direct focus on roads, and so little on mobility has been a problem with Bangalore's planners for a decade now. But its only in early 2010, when a large road widening scheme from BBMP threatened to touch thousands of private properties that the debate has hit common citizens of Bengaluru.

Scientifically speaking, city roads needs consistent width - 4 lanes would do just fine - in corridors, better management of stopping and parking along the ribbons of corridors, width for pedestrians to keep them off the tar, and improvement at junctions to manage the flow.

VTU banning cars/bikes - good idea!

11 July 2010 - 12:56pm — hemaraj

I read an article that vtu is considering to ban students from using two wheelers and cars to college.

regarding this I was discusing with one of my friends in california, she gave me a valid point, that schools there , prefer to enrol only children within 2 -5 kms max. she shifted to an area where she liked the school and was good for her children.

Road Widening hits a road block?

11 July 2010 - 9:23am — psaram42

Today’s Sunday times had the head line on road widening ahead of Food Ball news for a change.

Your house cannot be taken forcibly under TDR.

“As per the rules, BBMP can take up road widening only under the Transferable Developments Rights Scheme (TDR). If the private property owner does not cooperate in giving away his land for road widening the process cannot be taken up legally”

The only option for BBMP is to forcibly acquire the property by paying current market rate under Karnataka land acquisition act. What then was the relevance of BBMP TDR in the first place? Was it to take away the property without proper compensation?

Corruption and Technologies in BMTC - List of Questions

10 July 2010 - 8:37pm — kbsyed61

Extending the discussion on Pilferage by BMTC Conductors/Official and taking SBs suggestion for coming up with the list of questions for possible direct answers from BMTC or filing RTI with BMTC.

In any case, as a civil city and residents of Bengaluru, it is our duty to hold the powers responsible for all that good and bad happens in public institutions and corporations.

BMTC needs to be held responsible and answers should be demanded for all the relevant issues and questions.

Let us collate all the questions here. Pls feel free to list the questions via comments under two categories.

Pilferage via in-bus corruption
State of technology use in BMTC

REQUEST - Pls do not start discussions on Private vs Public. You may do so by starting a separate post on it.

No response from Mr Madhu's office

9 July 2010 - 1:40pm — silkboard

Want to share with all that I have tried several times to contact Mr Madhu for a meeting to share our now-ready CRS report with him. Have sent emails to his, and his PA's office, at least 5 emails. Have made at least 3 calls to his office as well. The person at other end, on one occasion, carried a chit for him while he was in the middle of a meeting.

Some of us took half day leaves from our work to meet him that day. We started on this report after our meeting with him, where during the meeting, he asked us to come back with a report summarizing our thoughts and suggestions. Now that the report is ready, and people have spent serious time putting it together, its only fair to expect him to at least accept the report.

He just got additional responsibilities, so its likely that he is busy with increased work load. We will try reach him again this week, email as well as phone, and in case there is no response yet again, we will assume that he didn't really expect us to complete it when he suggested that we prepare a written report.

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