What would be better is to complete the ongoing strategy of BBMP to make the Big10 roads and the Outer Ring Road signal free. This will create a preferred mobility corridor for movement in and out of the city, and also around the city. Such differentiation between high volume corridors and other roads is necessary to have any chance of managing the growing demand for mobility infrastructure.
For the full text of the article in the Citizen Matters by Dr Ashwin Mahesh, click here.
The suggestion for signal-free corridors has already evoked a number of responses from readers. The matter came up for considerable debate earlier too when the Sarjapur road stretch, passing through Koramangala, was sought to be made into a signal-free corridor (check here). The local residents resisted it, and appreciating the merits in their arguments, the Karnataka High Court eventually ordered restoration of the road to its original shape, work on which is progressing now.
However, the signal-free corridors along the Big-10 routes, suggested by Dr Ashwin Mahesh is also meant to speed up movement of public transport buses, and not just cars. And, isn't that a dire need today? Perhaps, there can even be restrictions on the movement of private cars along these corridors too during peak hours. As such, as long as good facilities for pedestrians, and bus users (elevated walk-ways, skywalks, etc - check here for good examples), can be created along these corridors, I would be overall OK with the idea.
Whatever, on other than these corridors, pedestrian crossings/ facilities should necessarily be at grade.
Muralidhar Rao
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Comments
Exit/Entry Ramps, Priority for PT!
Agree with What Ashwin is saying on piecemeal attempts by BDA/BBMP. If the attempt is to fix the traffic snarls, then it has to be end to end fix, i.e. you take stretch from one corner of the city to the other end of the city, example starting from Hoskote and ending at Kengeri, Yelahanka to Electronic city, Magadi Road to Thindlu/Bagalur etc. I am sure one can identify many more such corridors that would cover all the roads.
Regarding signal free corridors for BIG-10 and ORR that Ashwin is advocating makes a perfect sense if the identified corridors are provided with proper entry/exit ramps. Not with current design.
Actually what would really help is giving priority to PT system like dedicated lanes for buses on all roads at least during rush hours and private vehicles getting lesser priority. For faster flow of PT, may be certain roads be exclusively reserved for buses based on the road width, cars/others have to take a detour.
IMPLEMENTATION OF RULES
What ever facilities we plan , under pass , ROB , Express Way all effort will go for vain unless otherwise, we implement the Rules. We can able to resolve the Congestion and Trafic woes just by strict implemention, education , and by punitive method.
1. Implement strictly No ENTRY of Heavy Vehicles in side the city Roads during Peak Hours.
2. Implement strictly No Parking Near the junctions and signals by BMTC, Public and Private Buses and fleets.
3. Implement strictly, the Private Company Vehicles used to ferry the public from Bus stops and junctions !
4. Implement strictly the Vehicles are used for which they are Registered to use.
4. Implement strictly the Autos are parked at their dedicated and identified STANDS.
5. Implement strictly the Heavy Vehicles refrain to use Right side of the Roads.
6. Implement strictly the BMTC Buses are stopped only at the identified Bus stops.
7. Implement strictly No encroachment of plat forms and Road by any means.
7. Implement strictly the commuters are standing on the foot path to board their Buses.
If we do this we can able to see a very good improvement on the congestion and trafic woes.
M S SHANKAR
Incompetent
BBMP, BDA or any other agency is today incapable of implementing any road projects. They have converted all these into a sham to cheat you and me of our tax money. We should oppose any widening or additional road building projects undertaken by them. Let them fix engineering on the existing roads & show us how capble they are before attempting any signal free or flyover on any corridor.
Efficiency gains by fixing the existing roads will be far more than any project they can implement. They cant get tendersure in 5 roads, they shouldnt even talk of building anything. They took on suranjan das road how many moons ago? go see how it is today. Pathetic bunch.
Bombay Western Express Highway and signal free
Road widening and flyovers are pork barrel projects for BBMP and BDA to fatten contractors' bank balances and receive kickbacks for themselves. I can't think of any that have not fallen into this category. They have just kicked the can down the road. Very soon we can have a black asphalt circle of 10 km dia in the middle of Bangalore and the rest of the town around this. Then people can zip in whichever direction they want.
Look at Bombay's Western Express Highway - about 25 km of "signal free" road. It works beautifully - when there is low traffic. Evening peak hour time, traffic crawls at an average of 8-10kmph and on some stretches at 5-6 kmph. And for most of the distance this is 4+4 or even 5+5 not including service roads.
The flyover entrances are bottlenecks thanks to bad design and even worse motorist behaviour. People form 7 lanes where there are 5 road lanes and then try to muscle their way into the 3 lane flyover from every direction. The result is that the 500 m before many flyovers takes 5-10 minutes to cover. There is no way to put off your engine because you are condemned to a 1st gear crawl.
There are no dedicated bus lanes - because heaven forbid these will eat into car users rights. There is no toll to be paid to use it. It is badly potholed as of now on some parts. The junctions below are an utter mess because there is no slack or money to maintain them.
And we want to repeat this. And know BBMPs and BDAs supreme competence, it will be like an ugly cancer tissue running across town.
Drive safe. It is not just the car maker which can recall its product.
Innovation in town planning and work habits.
Ad hoc solutions may not lead us any where. They amount to at best slipshod solutions.
"Discarded meridian approcah" may be worth while looking at. Click [1] Click [2] Gated communities surrounded by their work place is the basic concept. This facilitates further optimization. Work place accomodation provided by employer with primery schooling, can do wonders. work from home is popular now a days.
"Travelling sales man" consept may be of some relevence too! Retired people of cource have no problem in settling down at the place of their choice.
IMPLEMENTATION OF RULES
When we as a common citizens are aware of the fact that the Express ways and etc. is not the solution to our concerns, don’t we think that the Bureaucrats who propose and approve these projects not known of this. They are very much aware. The Money what they spent on this, can be spent to recruit Police Personnel or any other personnel, who can work towards implementation of existing rules which would definitely ease congestion, traffic and what not. The Pathetic part is as a common citizen we can able to air our angry and views against these Bureaucrats only on this kind of forum.
M S SHANKAR
signal free for just PT?
As Srivatsa mentions its basic behaviour of our drivers which is at fault most times even on the widest of the roads..so coming back to our situation in blr I was thinking if we can go in for a signal free corridor only for PT..
The signal free ORR btw Silkboard to Hebbal is already mapped for BRTS and the DPR is done by DULT..guess its just left to extend this to the other half of the ORR..only in this case we can just have signal free junctions for busses/PT only!
We can run busses initially and then probably get to more cleaner options like LRT/Tram services like the Dublin LUAS and others in most of EU..it will run at grade most of the time and goes ariel at junctions..
Fix what is already there
Let them fix engineering on the current roads <PERIOD> not an inch of extra construction should be allowed until then. There is NO excuse for not fixing the current roads, give me one.
Signal-free no answer
I too have noticed the peak hour mess that Mumbai WEH is whenever in Mumbai (didn't know Srivathsa was in Mumbai). When they built the flyovers, the promise was that Bandra to Dahisar could be done in 20 minutes, but today, during peak hours it can take well over an hour, even if one joins inbetween (like from below the Andheri or Santcruz flyovers).
So, no real point in making long stretches signal free since the ends or the ramps inbetween wherever they join will soon become traffic bottle-necks in no time with induced traffic.
The real answer is to have signal-free corridors for only buses (i.e. BRT or rapid bus). Wonder why ORR (eastern crescent) is not being pursued since many of the flyovers have already been built with this in mind (by allowing surface lanes in the middle).
Totally second IDS's argument
I totally second IDS argument that first fix all the existing roads and then talk about new widening or signal free roads.
See the newly build flyovers on ORR, all the service lanes, roads/space below the flyover are left in worst conditions. No pedestrian facilities, no bus-stops, nothing is there, only roads on the flyover is shinning (I don't know how long that last).
A few examples -
Agara flyover
Iblur flyover
All the flyovers on the ORR
They not at all think about people walking below the flyover or people riding/driving below the flyover, and they say work is complete after they open the road above flyover.
Deepak
Until the service roads are
Until the service roads are completed, the flyovers do not serve any purpose!
There are two flyovers near Intel and at Ecospace, spaced very little apart, and with no service roads. Vehicles cross each other between the flyovers rather than under the flyover. The whole point of having the flyover is to avoid such crossing traffic, and the flyovers do not serve that purpose!
In addition, the way bus stops are positioned now, it is dangerous for anyone to wait at the ecospace bus stop! Ideally, the bus stops should also be moved under the flyover, as in the case of Agara.
People seem to think that the traffic is better after the flyover is completed! But the comparison seems to be b/w the traffic when the flyovers were under construction, vs now. Ideally the comparison shoul be bw the time before the flyover construction and now.
Suranjan Das Road in today's Hindu
This looks like another example of BBMP's supreme incompetence at anything it undertakes.
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/its-status-quo-on-suranjan-das-road/article4926247.ece
"Actually, here’s where the worst part of the journey begins. Now that it is raining almost every day, the stretch from BEML gate to the HAL Aerospace Division is a swimming pool with knee-deep water. When the water drains out, it’s all dust and debris. On the stretch from Jivan Bima Nagar junction to the HAL Airport junction a person with good eyesight can spot a few patches of tarmac. This is by far the worst part of the road."
It undertook those 2 underpass projects on ORR near JP Nagar and Kadirenahalli. What was a 1 year project took 3 and created chaos in the interim period. And we are to entrust them with arterial road widening? The city will be hellish and when in the next decade this is completed more cars would have rendered it useless.
Srivathsa
Drive safe. It is not just the car maker which can recall its product.
Needs a re-look
All the road widening or signal free corridors being planned need a re-look.
* Proposal to build an elevated road from Silk Board to Jayadeva Hospital is in the offing. Earlier widening was planned, but was given up due to opposition from public as lot of private land had to be acquired. An elevated road or widened road is not really required here. Since this is a 2 lane road, BUS-BAYS AT DESIGNATED BUS-STOPS, followed by STRICT ENFORCEMENT OF NO-PARKING on this road should solve most of the problem. INCREASE in GREEN SIGNAL TIME for traffic on this main road, along with SYNCHRONISATION with silk board junction signal should solve most of the problems.
* Signal free corridor on the ORR segment from silk board to K.R.Puram is in a complete mess @ Bellandur (near ECOSPACE, Intel and Prestige Tech Park). A signal free corridor needs appropriate entries and exits to/from the service roads which is non-existent today and is leading to chaos every passing day. The situation is pathetic as the traffic jam extends all over the flyovers constructed.
- Srivatsan
Suranjan Das road saga..
The work started with much fanfare..with Raghu the local BJP mla inagurating the tree chopping programme..govts changed now..but Raghu was re-elected MLA again..so Congress sure will try to put spanner in the works..so no wonder the work is slow..but goes on!
I hope the road they lay will atleast be half as good as the original HAL laid concrete one!