ORR choking near KR Puram station - one reason

Go through this particular place every evening. The bulge, and then the narrow/choke section - that is definitely one reason for backup here. It could speed up this point by 30-40%. What makes it worse are these two things

• Buses stop at a stand right where the 'bulge' changes into a 'neck'
• No facilities for peds under the bridge - they must walk on the road, without protection, except in mornings, and sometimes in the evening when a cop is around to blow whistles.

What the hell would it take to do a pedestrian subway here? I wonder if we should take it in our hands and organize a public works/digging day to launch construction of a ped subway. [not as easy as this is right under the cable bridge structure]

Last time I asked at KR Puram police station, 7 children were hit (most injured, and possibly 1 died - confirmation wasn't clear) at this point in last 9 months. This was via an informal chat with two cops, not any RTI.

Not that this alone would be enough. The demerge between Old Madras Road and Outer Ring Road 500 meters before this point is another choke point + pedestrian nightmare (see other posts for suggestions about a bus stand near the media with subway for accessing it). Plus, there is a road opening into Outer Ring Road right near the bridge pillar from South side.  Can talk this one in separate one.

Hope that all this or anything else wont be lost in the famous NHAI vs BDA vs Traffic Police punt. Besides half lande width worth land right at the curve, doing the ped subway too would require Railways help, as the opening on station end would fall in their land.

In the picture iDS has put up above..the existing bus bay exit is made very sharp because of the rails/compund there put up by IR..

What I had heard before was that the original plan was to take the ORR through that baricaded area and through the two wheeler parking lot of railway station.

There was also a proposal to bring down the small block of old railway quarters just after this jn. This would have kept the ORR 3 lanes each way all through..but IR never parted with the land..

Now that we have minister of state for IR from Karnataka..getting these pieces of land for improving roads should be taken up!

I can take one name for sure - Mr Jai Prasad from BBMP - he clearly knows that throughput of a road stretch is proportional to the width of the narrowest section.

What I don't know is this - why doesn't this knowledge translate to action?

And then - a few babus blame Praja like communities saying these guys should come help us and not just talk - well, tell us why you expect us to do your job? First explain the basics to us, the clueless people - why is it that you all know the right things and yet miss the basics on the ground? I am not cribbing - genuinely want to understand.

Just see these posts - how many members actually believe that BBMP or BDA actually understand the solutions, let alone the problems? Once BBMP/BDA/Police can explain their side well enough that hey, trust us, we know and understand all this, but here is what stops us from doing all this good stuff, I bet people will jump in to help.

I have heard there is a plan to acquire land on the other side of the bridge (Lowry school side). This could solve the problem to some extend.

As a temporary solution, the restriction of trucks between 8 to 10 in the morning and 6 to 8 in evening could be considered on this stretch.

Srivathsa - to join on the rant train a bit, how would you expect BBMP to understand road design well enough, or BBMP route designs?

It will go back to the basic point - govt doesn't have talent working for them, simple. Everything else is a symptom. All else would be fringe items - babus are not responsible, bodies don't collaborate (KR Puram chaos is prime example) etc etc. But the heart of the matter is - beyond the guys who come in through that top level public service exam - where is the talent?

Perhaps some out of the box thinking or programs could help

• hire people on short term basis from open market to bridge the talent gap?
• Or, a Singapore army like service ? - everyone city's magaa must give 1 year of service to the city after college education?
• Companies operating in the city could give talented people (for short term projects) as "bangalore tax".

Or the more regular way - project based outsourcing (build and maintain this corridor, here are the throughput goals) as opposed to peice meal work tenders (1 tender for road taring, 1 tender for footpaths, 1 tender for painting signs) that only help to create more need for someone higher up to integrate things.

We have gone way offtopic now. I am done with pure rants.

Pictures of NR square, Hudson circle & Vidhana Soudha that showcase Bangalore in tourist manuals are similar to what SY has posted here - the traffic chaos in Ho Chi Minh city is well known, though it may not be as bad as in Bangalore or other Indian cities.

The administrators in those countries learn from others & make copies that are almost as good, if not better. Our babus utilize such opportunities to tour other countries & fill their albums with pictures - that's it, learning & implementation be damned !

We need babus to use their skills & display their talents in overcoming a barrage of severe problems such as land scarcity, excess traffic, indiciplined users, etc.. 

Instead of this, though they may have performed well in exams, they get busy courting politicians for plum postings & such ópportunities & pay only lip service for much needed improvements.

This is why acheivements of people like Dr.Sreedharan stand out - hope we get to see many more like him in the years to come.

 Please note the following in the BDA 2009-2010 budget - not withstanding the thought that this was a fake budget as discussed in an earlier thread.

Item (m) under new works: Constn of Loop to Connect to Old Madras Road with ORR & widening of ORR - budgeted amount for 2009-2010: 15 crores

Item (c) under the head new works:  Constn. Of Grade separator along with ORR at the Intersection of Mahadevapura: Budget 20.25 crores

Depending on what exactly these improvements are, there may be scope for improving that general area if these plans are properly designed and executed.  Does anybody have any idea what exactly these changes are.  There is already a partial grade separator at the Mahadevapura ORR intersection, right?

Apart from the discussion in this thread about geometry and pedestrians,as well as KR Puram station,  two things that irk me about the design of this area are (a)  Why does traffic from the ring road (Hebbal side) have to do a U-turn stunt before exiting to Bangalore city?  Was it not possible to have a loop directly connecting to OMR? (b): Same question about the cable stayed bridge portion.  The traffic comes to Pai layout to do a U-turn and head towards ORR.  What kind of a boneheaded design is that?

What would they be?  There is obviously something very wrong here and it reeks of negligence and neglect

What questions would we ask?

E.g.

a. During the construction of the suspension bridge was a pedestrian footpath planned along the ORR between point X and point Y?

b. How much money was allocated for this footpath?

c. Which department was responsible for constructing this footpath?

d. Who was the contractor?

e. What pedestrian facilities were planned?

Get what I mean?

Srivathsa

 Talking about the traffic here..a bulk of it is HTV/Multi axle vehicles which do not have an alternate to get to hosur road from tumkur road..

The PRR work need to be hastened to move this traffic..

Among the other grand plans of the Govt. we have the 'signal free' ORR corridor from Silkboard to Hebbal road..this should also address the pedestrians..cos the signal under  the hanging bridge is mostly for peds..

magic underpass peds are more useful here than wasting it on millers road/nrupathunga road!

This thread is of interest , since I have interacted with BBMP/BDA a little bit - my two cents

There is a dearth of awareness of road engineering which runs top down - and the ability it can play to solve issues. The tendency is to look for something "BIG" to solve our problems and this runs across the board (not just engineers )

The engineers, the few I interacted, are not as dumb as indicated. They are quite "on the ground smart".   For eg: they have numbers on their finger tips - we could discuss sense on what lane width should be (they knew how wide a bus is), they can look at pavements and tell you how much it should cost, tender details (which is quite detailed) , they could explain better than me issues with existing drainage systems etc.  As I have mentioned in my document, the focus is so strong on material and construction, design is getting missed out.

This is the hard part for me to understand as well - the system over time gets set in its ways of doing things - and it becomes hard to change. Each engineer gets into the system and gets 'trained' into its ways - their eyes do not open to other aspects. Companies that get set in similar fashion just die and new companies are born - but that cannot happen in govt. organisation. We dont realise it, but our thinking has overtime broadened because we work with so many diverse professionals internationally, see so many things and what becomes obvious to us is not so obvious to others not having that exposure.

The last issue is of detailing. I usually hate to generalise and say culture, but culturally we dont value details and detailing as much and I see that on Praja as well.  Every person highlights one or two details that are poor and goes to town about it - but there are tens, maybe hundred of them and you need to take care of them all to get a quality product.  Somebody needs to step back and collate all of them, structure them and design such that it all adds up. There are very few people who can or willing to do it, across the board, across the community.

To improve things, this is my approach -

I wouldnt go the RTI path - it is a little confrontational, doesnt add much value, will create more hype than substance and at the end of it you are left with the same engineers who have got suspicious of you.

To improve the roads, you have to improve the people responsible for them. One is to fill in the missing link - by providing all the detailing required in one easy to use/ easy to understand/easy to refer too document. Second, to actually show designs of certain sections and how it can be differently, engage with the engineers to open up to this perspective and lastly get some seminars/training organised on a continuos basis so that they start picking up. I am working on all these three and some of you have been helpfull, but it has been sparse - a more committed effort would be useful.

If this appears a long, tedious, boring method, it is. The alternative is to rant on boards and forget about it. 

Yes, do agree that RTIs are seen as confrontational. If we can get the answers merely by asking someone, there is no need to start with RTIs.

Goal is to understand why all this comon sense wisdom doesn't translate to good engineering in public works (in this case, Road work).

So lets do this. Like we are trying with BMTC, let us create a channel of commmunication with BBMP. Challenge here is that BBMP may not be as well organized a body as BMTC, ut we will figure as we go.

All we need to get started is for at least two Praja members to play the 'engagement manager" with BBMP. Basically, we are asking for Manjari/Sudheendra/Rithesh equivalents to organize small group iteractions where we take summary of all these discussions to BBMP.

Won't be a lot of work - may be one meeting a month at max. And purely online (out of Bangalore) members will help preparing sumarized content to take to these meetings.

2 volunteers for the engagement manager job here, thats all, and we can get started with taking our requirements and gyaan to BBMP.

Excellent examples (here and here) of the low-hanging fruits that most of us on here wish the powers-that-be pick! And not so much the 22,000 crore headline grabbers... (are you listening ToI, DH?). Extra-wide footpaths are sorely needed in the area.

@ SB... since most of the proposed design improvements under the flyover marking (here) are road-marking (chevrons), wouldn't BDA be the point agency? BTP for the barriers?

@ IDS another potential use for lane 1(while still on the Benniganahalli flyover) ...albeit in the long run is to build a loop using the existing Benniganahalli lake park to build a U-turn for OMR vehicles to go to Bangalore (guessing this would be BDA and NHAI). 

From Praja_posts

Does anyone have any ideas for restoring pedestrian connectivity across ORR/Cable stayed bridge? The cable-stayed bridge had these pedestrian tunnels but they open out right onto the ORR lanes (blue ovals). My thought was two small ped magic boxes (purple boxes) on either end of ORR that open under the on/off ramp to the Cable-stayed bridge. To cross ORR you would: a) use the ped subway, b) come out inside the tunnel c) on the other end of the tunnel use another subway to cross the remaining portion of ORR.  

From Praja_posts

 TM,

In my opinion, this should be done by developing the roads between NGEF & Ramamurthy nagar and not through KRpuram

sorry for the distraction. just wanted to shout. AWESOME goings boys!!

 @ thampan and IDS, I had thought of the "red road" also which I think is a great idea. Another thing to keep in mind is the plan to convert it (fortunately or unfortunately) to a 10 lane bridge with the initial plan being the construction of the outer 4. Setting aside all our arguments for why 10 lanes might be way too many lanes here, let's try to use the 2 new Eastbound lanes that are planned to be constructed first. Going by the artist's impression these head straight onto the Ben. flyover (Northbound)...

We can take the leftmost lane (red road) and send this under the Benn. flyover... into the 'park' and emerge before the cable stayed bridge... a small modification of thampan's red road. It might need to be a little sub-surface since it will have to clear an ascending Ben. ramp.

From Praja_posts

@IDS...

1. the problem with using Sadanand nagar rd. is the point where it joins OMR @ NGEF. At the best of times, it's a bad intersection and is probably going to worsen with KSRTC's plans to build a TTMC (or was it IMTC?). But for now let's just try to free up this stretch! One step at a time!

2. Not sure if the island stop is necessary... there should be enough room for ITPL/ORR buses to change lanes after passing under the cable-stayed bridge.  

3. Using ped-Xs on this stretch will require a slowing down of traffic (not a concern now though!) once the flow frees up (pelican lights?).

Dear Suhas,

In addition to ABIDe, you may include 'City Connect'.

K.V.Pathy

Hi All,

Agreed that proper & clear signage is useful & can matter a lot, no doubt. However, the mother of all problems is certainly excessive traffic.

I have been travelling daily by cab here in Guangzhou with conditions similar to bangalore minus the 2-wheelers, autos & plus the excellent signage on all roads plus some construction activity thrown in (they are expanding the Metro, BRT is under construction, as also few underpasses & flyovers at some important junctions).

Despite much wider roads, great pedestrian & bicycle infrastructure, during peak hours, the problems are all similar - traffic crawls & tends to be chaotic, though not as bad as in our cities due to somewhat better discipline & presence of mobile traffic squads.

The road capacity at OMR /ORR overlap is quite substantial, though signage & segregation of pedestrians is very poor. This can only improve properly & permanently if traffic volumes are reduced.

The PRR may help remove truck traffic, the Metro may reduce private vehicles, & so on. Additional road widths may actually worsen the problems there as it will be an invitation to all to continue using private vehicles when other public modes are made available.

One thing is for sure - building a Metro is only a first step. Unless steps are taken to wean people away from cars & use PT instead, these problems will continue. Limiting road availability is one step towards this.

I have been thru all the suggestion and the ways to ease traffic.  But then the development on these roads not considering the locality has been the cause of the chaos.  The following consideration should be taken into account.

1. Railway station: Acts as sudden spurt of pedestrians and autorikshaw and taxi traffic.  Should we have safe movement of passengers and the regulated movement of autorickshaws.  They not only out them on risk by crossing the road to move towards benniganahalli but also others using the road.

2. The School:  Though the lowry memorial school management have shifted the main enterance from the Whitefield road to the cross road leading to A.Narayanpura, this has reduced the risk of student but have not eleminated.  It is a good call by the mangement.

3.The A.Naryanapura entry and exit:  Entry and exit of vehicle from A.N.Pura road one perpendicular to K.R.puram rly station is the maor bottle neck in the movement of traffic from whitefield road, ORR towards benniganahalli.  When the signal opens in this location usually done the by moving vehicles no proper direction and they clash directions.  The ANP entry vehicles actually block the vehicles moving towards ORR under the bridge.