Have you seen this one?
Apart from Volvo goody, here is something interesting and concerning.
A Rs 1,000-crore, 45-storey interchange terminal where BMTC, KSRTC and Namma Metro services would converge, would come up at the Majestic bus stand, the minister said and added that the construction work on it would begin shortly.
I think we need to answer:
> Where did this come from? CTTP?
> While I certainly see a need for a good interchange terminal, why should such a thing cost 1000 crores and be 45-storeys high?
> What is the use for a tower? Office space Or Parking Space? Wouldn't that create a bigger mess?
> Add to it - plan is to relocate majestic bus terminals to 'temporarily'. I would guess it will take atleast 3 to 5 years to build something simila. 3 to 5 year shift is temporary!
Thanks,
Ravi
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Right hand does not know/understand what left hand does :)
Do we require such an interchage with upcoming metro, TTMCs and interstate bus stands on periphery? I think the authorities are still revolving their planning blunder around Majestic to screw it up further. I have been to Majestic area just 2-3 times in last 4 years, that too when I was forced to get down at City Railway stations on long distance trains. This is the expected outcome if each of the implementing agencies work in silos without a co-ordinating agency to resolve the issues emerging out of fast paced urbanization. A couple of days ago, I read about a blanket ban on construction with in 5 kms radius of Vidhan Soudha. Do we need such a ban with metro coming up in another 3 years time(expected)? Why does even traffic police think about car based transportation? This is when there is a proposal to increas the FAR in adjoining areas of metro. It is time we grow vertical comapred to horizontal spread of the city that we have seen so far. Look at ORR-Sarjapur Road junction and surrounding areas, I feel this is more functional rather than any of the layouts mushrooming on the suburbs. A concentrated business hub and surrounding vertically grown residential areas are much functional (water distribution, sewage collection, transport etc).
Ramesh.
A Monorail or Lightrail should do the trick
Bangalore Railway Station, City Bus Stand and Intercity Bus Stand are all adjacent to each other, where the problem lies is the interconnectivity. The subway between railway station and bus stand stinks with lot of hawkers. One has to close their nose while entering and exiting the subway because of the mess at the enterance.
Also, one has to walk and climb a lot, say from Platform No 10, one has to take the stairs or use subway till the enterance of railway station, walk for some distance in the compound, again get down in the subway, again climb up and take the footover bridge. A easy way out of this which can be implemented rightaway is shuttle bus services between station and bus stand.
Best alternative would be to start Lightrail or Monorail as done in airports between terminals between railway station and city busstand with a nominal cost of say 3-5 rupees.
Railway footover bridge itself can be extended till KBS to avoid the 'Get Down the footover bridge at station, use the subway, take the footover bridge again at busstand to avoid the 'circus'' to the commuters. The subway was vaguely planned. Footover bridges are much more cleaner than the subways since it doesn't give 'camp' to hawkers as well as rain will wash the mess even if BBMP/railways do not clean the footover bridges.
First take - could be a blunder
Misplaced investment, to get even more crowds right to the center of the city. Developing the center of the city as an exchange point between modes of local or intra-city transport is fine (the two metro lines would meet under majestic). But investing further in that area to encourage local to long distance exchange, right in the middle of the city - its a risky move.
You can pull it off if you expect absolutely everyone to get to the station in a Metro or via a bus. But if that doesn't happen, you have created yet another incentive for people to either live in CBD, or to travel from far flung places to the central area.
This could be a marvel if the city station is converted to a local-only train station, and SWR moves its long distance operations to a satellite station. Ditto for KSRTC, which I am told is likely to happen. That would give us a n intra-city multi-modal hub, not bad, thought you don't need this much investment, just smooth walkways, escalators, pavements etc from bus to train to metro stations.
I also have issues with developing such a strong hub in the center. This will tend to encourage hub and spoke transportation - go to majestic first and then to your eventual destination for consumers, and operators may keep all the buses there as there would be space. Not sure if single big central-hub is an efficient model.
Anyway. Its early days, I am sure these things will get thought-over and plans will possibly be altered.
monstrosity
Now, the old jail complex became the 'Freedom Park' (yet to be completed) following a fairly transparent ideas/ architectural competition. With that kind of a precedent in place, I think we should now be demanding that all future developments relating to public places should go through a similar process. Prem Chandavarkar, a leading architect of Bangalore, had some time back suggested that we should have something on the lines of what is envisaged at http://www.designtrust.org/home/home.html, in Bangalore also.
I have this uneasy feeling that the Transinnova seminar may also have been meant to be the 'public hearing' component for approval of the project, as required under JNNURM norms. I hope I am wrong.
Extract from CTTP
In Table 9.3, Item 7, CTTP lists the following entry:
"Multimodal Transit Centre at Subhashnagar, Unit Cost Rs. 350 Cr, 1st Phase of Development"
Think, think, think..... Could this be a grandiose avatar of this humble traffic centre? Cost escalation and addition of a few storeys of commercial floor plate could put it at 1000 Cr you see... Or could it be our answer to create a masterpiece to prove 'BIAL is shoddy'!? :)
Leaving aside all my nonsense talk, could this really be it?
Thanks,
Ravi