Do planners in Bangalore realize that bottlenecks are the main source of traffic problems? It doesn't matter if you have a 5km long 8 lane road at the end of which has a bottleneck which reduces to 2 lanes.
It looks like that the Mysore road is going to be widened. The govt will end up spending crores of money and cause inconvenience to lot of riders during this widening spree. We'll also lose all the trees which so far have kept the Mysore road a complete canopy. But the Bapujinagar bridge is a huge bottleneck. If nothing is done to widen at this point, the whole effort is meaningless. Given that we have the Masjid and the GhaaLi Anjaneya temple on either side, we can imagine that this part of the road can never be widened.
Do the officials even think about this before going about doing their job of road widening?
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toll gate bus stop..
in front of the Shell Petrol Bunk is the main reason for slow traffic on Mysore road..this needs to be taken care of..and the solution is simple..only if they could hear!!
The other bottleneck is the signal right before the start of the sirsi circle flyover..the road needs to be widened only here to address the jams..
But there is madness and careless attitude of the authorities..who think widening and adding another lane is going to fix everything!\
..and again the trees on those roads is our heritage..more precious than the Vidhana soudha or the high court..which are only centres of corruption! We lost many of them when the mysore road flyover was built and now this..where we stand to loose all of them!
Maybe we need an avatar to stop them!
Flyover under construction
There is an elevated road/flyover being constructed over the SWD at the GA Temple junction, with various arms branching off to Chord Road, Mysore Road and the KSRTC bus terminal. When this is complete (as per the original traffic plan), Mysore Road will be converted into a one-way between GA Temple junction and Deepanjalinagar, Chord Road will be converted into a one-way between the ROB and Deepanjalinagar, and traffic from Kengeri towards Sirsi Circle will run via Chord Road and then the elevated road to reach GA temple junction. Hopefully, once this is done, the bottleneck at GA Temple junction and the narrow stretch between GA Temple junction and Deepanjalinagar should clear up.
Hopefully. Because the project has been limping along for nearly three years now and shows absolutely no signs of nearing completion.
~~~~
Manish.
Delay due to Metro ?
The delay could be because of complications with Metro construction also slated in around the same area (ie. Chord rd - Mys rd junction).
Re: Delay due to Metro
Gaali Anjaneya Flyover alignment stays clear of metro alignment. Metro runs on west side of the Chord road, while the flyover begins from the east. Delays were due to issues with land acquisition and equipment used to drill into the drain (it is essentially a road over drain). I am not sure how much of the two issues are sorted out.
We had spoken to an insider over an year ago (we had traced and reached a project guy who does not work there any more). See this entry for more.
100+ tall trees bite dust
they have started felling the tall shady trees on mysore road from sirsi circle onwards..these total about more than 100..
Feels pathetic..that the authorites dont still understand that its not the road width but the traffic delay is due to couple of junctions on that road..
The trees are victims of ignorance here!
Need to report to Hasiru Usiru!!
Yes Srinidhi,
I am afraid you are correct!! We have to report this to Hasiru usiru immediately. They have been pretty successful in stopping/curbing tre-felling in the city. Ofcourse, its another matter that I dont really admire them greatly, for they have created huge hurdles in 'genuine' cases as well.
What is needed there is to cut only about 5-8 trees between DHL and the burial ground near Sirsi Circle flyover ramp. Only that stretch of about 150 mts needs to be widened, and tree cutting there is just fine.
Another choke point is near the new Shell petrol bunk opposite to the burial ground (pls dont be wondering if Mysore road has only burial grounds!!). What is needed here is to shift the bus stand to the bang opposite the Shell petrol bunk. There is suffcient width on the road already for the bus bay. If at all, we may need to bring down 1-2 trees here.
The rest of Mysore road is doing just fine. The RoD (Road over Drain) will help in the movement of traffic greatly, if the plan is to make one-ways as mentioned in Manish's comment above. That will create the 'world largest roundabout' with a electrical factory and residential locality withing the boundries of the 'circle'!!
-Srivatsava V
guys, can anyone pls upload
guys,
can anyone pls upload some photos? or mail it to vinay.sreenivasa@yahoo.com or to the hasiru usiru mailing list
Sent the Photos of trees
Vinay,
Thanks for the initiative..I have sent the photos taken today morning to the mail id above..I am travelling today and will not be able to put it up here..
Srivastava,
Completely agree with you..the problem areas are..
1.Shell petrol bunk bus stop needs to be moved further (needs few tree cutting here, but that ok) bby 100 ft
2.Junction needs to be improved as the sirsi circle flyover lands(front of masjid).
If something can be done to stop the massacre..it would be good. I was stuck in a usual jam yesterday on this road for 30 min and the only reprive was the trees which provided good shade in the hot summer sun..pray they are not chopped!
The road expansion can still happen though..they can carve out a lane keeping the trees for just 2 wheelers maybe!
Shift the median
As of now, we can save a lot of trees only if we fell a few trees near the burial ground junction. The road expansion can be carried without felling the other trees and it can be made a separate lane with the trees in between. Today, traffic snarls are more common in the direction towards the flyover rather than the opposite. So, if the median is shifted by a couple of metres, we can preserve all the trees.
Bus stand is another issue
Another major source of the problem is the wrong positioning of the bus stand. The major source is because of the huge traffic caused by the buses themselves. Every 5th vehicle on this road is a bus. Most of the buses that enter or exit the bus stand are Tamil Nadu buses which ply with not more than 10 people on an average. Most of TN users alight or aboard the bus in Shanthi Nagar. This is humongous loss of road space. Do we really need to bring all these TN buses all the way to Mysore road? Or is it meaningful to try to move the buses by building a bus stand closer to Hosur road, somewhere near Bommanahalli and have feeder services to the city?
Secondly, the bus stand has an exit into a bottleneck. The exit from the bus stand doesn't gradually merge with the main road but cuts it perpendicularly. Hence, the movement of traffic becomes very slow at this point.
@srinidhi - thanks for the
@srinidhi - thanks for the pics.
DH has reported the issue and the discussion here in pg 3 (or og 4) today. we need to get ppl in that area also to raise their voice on this issue. anyone have any contacts there? as far as i know this impacts wards 140 and 141 .
Mys Rd trees felling
The link to DH article is here.
Solution for Guddahalli Junction
I have detailed the solution for Guddahalli Junction here.
Btw, I had gone to Sirsi circle yesterday night. I coundnt take any photographs due to heavy traffic, just before the long weekend. I will try to capture a few shots during daytime and post them here.
-Srivatsava V
Uploading photos
Uploading some pics Srinidhi sent
@Srivatsava, or @Vinay - any luck trying to send alternate solutions to BBMP? Or is it too late?
Alternatives? - Many
Passed thru' that area after a long time. Those trees.... it is saddening to see them being chopped. My 4 yr old son kept asking me why they are killing those trees, and he seems to be able to reason better than those bringing them down.
Stop them pls. Before they are all gone.
If they get two real and constant lanes for traffic to move, I bet the result will bot be too different from chopping all those trees. The additional width may not end up being constant. Chances are parked and waiting vehicles make it unusable even before they are done, and they probably take away whatever little is left of footpaths, forcing people to walk on the additional lane.
There is an ample scope for alternatives. Srivatsava has some ideas. They need to build recessed bus bays - purchase some property if need be and build them away from the existing two free lanes of traffic. There is ample space to build an underpass at the timber yard layout intersection (which is a one-way in any case) to let vehicles to join the traffic towards the city. There is a need for dedicated and planned U turn lanes - many wider stretches along this route to can make space for them.
In fact, it may be a good Praja project to find alternative solutions. I'm willing to host the knowledgeable Praja and drive you around to make it happen. Only if we can stop this madhouse killing of trees first, I guess.
Can we reach BBMP? What are our options of stopping this?
guess its too late..
4 more trees have been cut today and the void is sad!
Surely they will go completing the project and scratch their heads as to why the jams have not gone within a year!
Response to traffic - Downright foolish
scratch their heads as to why the jams have not gone within a year!
Couldn't be put better !!
These acts of unparalleled callousness & improfessional responses by authorities may never be witnessed or seen anywhere. Why is our administrative system so inept & completely lacking in intelligence or creativity of any kind ?
solution is to approach corporators
i feel one solution now is to approach corporators. they are the only ones who can stop the work. i didnt visit the road so i dont know exactly which ward it comes under but from what i can see on the ward maps ovelaid on google maps(check bbmpelections.in) , it comes under ward no 141 and ward no 140
can those who have been to the road please see the map on bbmp elections.in and confirm which wards are impacted?
maybe some of us can go meet the 2 corporator elects - one from bjp and one from congress, along with some printouts of srivatsa's ideas (although i hate proposing underpasses as solutions, they are not real solutions too) .
or atleast you guys can go meet them, ill try and get the contact details.
Corporator residential addresses!!
Vinay,
You are right on the wards mentioned... We can give this a shot!!
Here are the residential address of the corporators I gathered from bbmpelections.in
* Ward 140 - Chamarajapet - BV Ganesh (BJP)
#174/2, 3rd Main, Chamarajapet, Bangalore - 560018
* Ward 141 - Azad Nagar - Gowramma (Cong)
#17, 2nd Main, 3rd Cross, KVS Layout, Nanjamba Agrahaara, Chamarajapet, Blore -18
-Srivatsava V
Letter to Corporator - RR Nagar
Sent this email out to Mr GH Ramachandra, elected from RR Nagar constituency. Will try to reach him tonight by phone.
First, congratulations!
I'm one of those thousands of residents of RR Nagar (BEML Layout, 5th Stage), having been first hand witness to your developmental activities in the area. Thank you.
This email is to bring your attention to our age old trees on Mysore Road. As a resident of RR Nagar, I frequently suffer the mess on the Mysore Road between end of fly over and the Gali Anjaneya Temple. While stalled in that mess you can really appreciate these trees standing selflessly, giving us shade from the scorching sun, swallowing a bunch of carbon dioxide and dirt all the while giving us some of the oxygen we breath in return.
Now, they are bing chopped mercilessly; I feel for no real benefit in the long run. I request you to please read this thread from concerned citizens.
http://praja.in/en/blog/muthusubs/2010/03/16/mysore-road-expansion-how-can-you-remove-bottleneck#comment-21141
http://praja.in/en/blog/srivatsava/2010/04/02/mysore-road-choke-point-1-west-sirsi-circle
I understand that the activity is not happening in RR Nagar ward, but I also understand your learned civic stance on a lot of such issues. Apart from us, your & my kid(s) will have to pass thru' that stretch of the road a million times in future; let us at least give them some nice and shady trees. As you are well aware, widening the road without measures to streamline traffic will lead to a demand for more widening, possibly even before current project is complete!. So, please influence BBMP to stop this and to find practical alternatives.
I'll try to locate your contact number once I return home tonight, and call you personally to convey this message.
Thanks,
Ravi
Email Address
BTW, here is GHR's email (in case some one wants to repeat):
ghr dot rrnagara at gmail dot com
Meeting Ch'pet /Azad nagar Corporators today
Myself and Vinay Sreenivasa are meeting near Uma Talkies today evening at 7pm. We will proceed to meet atleast one of the corporators today.
Anybody interseted to join us, please call me on my mobile (98442-98662). We can be a little flexible with the timings.
-Srivatsava
-Srivatsava V
bangalore mirror article
http://www.bangaloremirro...
update on meeting with corporators
@srivatsa - pls add/edit anythign which i've missed/mentioned inaccurately
The Chamarajpete ward corporator is from BJP, Mr.Ganesh. Mr.Ganesh has not really spoke in favour of road-widening and sort of seems to agree that there are better options, however he was unwilling to take any stand and take action He also said that the area falls in the border of his ward and azadnagar and that he cant really have a full say in the matter. He promised to let us know if there was to be a publi hearing etc, but made no mention of who will conduct a hearing.
The congress corporator is a lady, Ms.Gowaramma. We spoke to her, she understood the issue but asked us to speak to her husband, Mr.Govindaraj. He also agrees this is an issue but he said since the BBMP has already taken a decision he cant do much, and a stay is the only way forward.
The important thing here is that, now that we have corporators, we can engage better with the system. Also, it looks like if we had approached the corporators earlier, when decisions/tenders were not yet finalised, maybe something could have been changed. We have another 80 roads to be widened and another impacted 80-90 wards. If we act now and start speaking to corporators, we have a good chance of engaging with them and ensuring that inequitable, short-term solutions(problems?) like road-widening are not done.
awesome
So as you said Vinay
Shall we maintain a ready contact list of (on a map) of all corporators? Can easily build a "contact your corporator" feature also for all corporators who use email.
But this line gives us an idea of problem we will run into for almost anything we take up with corporators (water, power, roads)
I believe BDA has been handed responsibilities of all (12?) corridors including this one (Mysore Road). Technically speaking, this sounds unconstitutional. But even otherwise, how would we deal with corporators using this "I can't have a full say because this is not just in my ward" problem?
re: silkboards post
@silkboard - having a ready list of corporators and contacts is necessary. i am also trying to capture as much as possible. also at cstep we are trying to build it into a bbmp map. but a simple excel sheet with phone numbers and email ids is essential mobile number is most important.
as for the other issue of ward boundaries, definitely its a challenge, the only way to resolve is to speak to both . on a case-by-case basis, we can decide what to do, sometimes getting corporators ina competetive mode might work, especially if they are from different parties. Else, the only thing to do is get enough ppl from her/his ward to put pressure.
let us build a wiki with corporator contact details
Let us do it this way
I will create the wiki page etc, need 2-3 people to maintain it. More features can come later
Sounds like a big job, but bettas are always dodda, and steps to climb them always small :)
Mysore road expansion - insider news!
It is said that the mysore road starting from Town Hall to Kengeri is being made into a signal free corridor!
14 junctions have been identified which needs to be made signal free for this project and that is what they are upto now..
It will be worthwhile to find out what the actual plan of this project, allocated 300 crores incidentally!
RTI's the hard way..any other thoughts on how to get this info?
link to wiki-like datasheet
I have created a datasheet in google docs. This is like wiki-sheet , any one can update. Hope this helps.
It doesn't matter if you have
It doesn't matter if you have a 5km long 8 lane road at the end of which has a bottleneck which reduces to 2 lanes.
Very simple fundamental point seen ignored on every road in Bangalore. Itshows how BBMP/Traffic police can build multi crore signal free bellary road but introduce 6 bottlenecks purely in terms of failing to manage routing by way of consistent lane marking and orderly merges of traffic. Bellary road from Hebbal flyover all the way to Minsk is a sea of asphalt with zero lane marking, unscientific U turns & Chaotic 5 lanes to 2 lane merges. Result, it takes 1 hour to cover the 10 kms during peak hour and all of the delay is due to merges.
This ignorance & apathy to simple lane marking and flow engineering is an insult to the people of the city.
cable ducts the BBMP way!?
Travel by the now bodu(bald) mysore road everyday and found something interesting in the way they are widening the road there..
There is drain being constructed on both sides of the road and along with the drain we have another structure being put up which looks like a duct for cables or something like that..need to talk to an onsite engineer to get more info..but this looks like govt's one of the first efforts to get utility lines in order and in one place..
This might be the after
This might be the after effect of the vittal mallya road.
Why is the flyover being built over the drain, so delayed?? No work seems to be happening there :(
choked already..
The mysore road stretch from satellite bus stand to sirsi circle flyover was widened and asphalted about two months ago..just after new govt took to power..
Already there are huge jams, as predicted above, during peak hours..that is because, even though the road was widened the entry and exits like the sirsi circle flyover are still two lanes and chokes the ramp! Absolutely nothing can be done there! The jams extend all the way from the foot of the flyover to after gopalan mall (>500 mts)
So what did all the widening get us to? A complete Naught!
Feels pathetic seeing the tall trees cut..all that was needed was some conservative road redesign and better traffic management..but everything was screwed up!
Only wish planners can read blogs and be better informed!
Mysore road
This evening there was a terrific jam on Mysore road - apparently there was an accident. I was on a bicycle and it took me 40 minutes to get from Bangalore University to the Chord Road junction - even though I could simply lift my bike out of a jam. A simple accident can completely destroy all the improvements they claim to have made. Anyway, forget about widerning - they first need to make the existing road. Its almost impossible to drive on it.
This is one of the most important roads in the city and they have been messing around without significant progress for the last 4 years. Such projects should be done with a war footing. It gives one very little hope for the future of this city - recent successes of Praja notwithstanding.