Somewhat in line with these past posts (hardships of changing bus, underpass design), I notice attempts to improve pedestrian facilities around airport road/ORR interchange at Marathahalli. I don't yet see any novel ideas to cut the massive walks it takes to change direction of bus travel (close to 1 Km to walk in one case), but the attempt is to at least make that walk easier. This should be part of Big10 corridor or junction improvement plan that Abide was talking about.
What do they seem to be doing? Simple. Putting the basics in place. Nice pavements are being done from bus stands on Airport Road all the way down to Outer Ring Road. Work being done includes creating paved surface for people to walk, as well as fences to prevent spillover to the road.
Welcome to see basics being put in place. I got few cribs though. 1) Width is too narrow at places. Esp since the pavement is fenced - this should be 3 or 4 person worth width to make women, and others as well feel comfortable. 2) Would need to watch for encroachment on the pavements being redone on the side where shops are. Nice paved surfaces are always waiting to be encroached. 3) Not enough to just do the pavements. There needs to be neat signage, and walk up/down ramp to marge in with the road at points where you want pedestrians to cross old Airport Road. I am hoping this wont be missed.
In case you are lost about the area being talked about, here is an old pic:
More pictures from the area, some are over a month old.
One more:
I avoid this area during peak hours, volume of pedestrians is lot more thicker at 9 - 9.30 am, and then around 6 pm.
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I notice most of the walk is on the ring road because of the stop before and after the ramps. How can the walk be made shorter?
1. Have an stop under the overpass on the ring road and retrofit stairs to go up to the marathahalli road. To make this disabled friendly you will need to attach an elevator as well. The bridge becomes a shelter for the bus stop and the stairs can be extended to form an overpass for pedestrians at surface level. This option enables BRTS.
2. Make the buses take the exit and stop at the marathahalli road stop and take the detour down to ring road again. This is a cheaper option, will add time to the trip due to the detour on the surface street depending on the traffic. This may require provision of U turns on the surface street or an exception for buses to cut across the surface street and head to the exit ramp from the entry ramp directly. Not an elegant option and BRTS buses cannot participate in this link up.
Option 1 will be good for all interchanges coming up on the ring road. I remember making this suggestion earlier to enable BRTS. Hope BRTS is being kept in mind and bus bay, stair/elevator space is being made at all interchanges.
something like that
Yep, some work done at locations marked below should help.
Some digging to add space enough for a bus stop, and then some stairs for walking up - sounds doable to me.
I bet these "long" walks are not being thought about for new underpasses on ORR. Most ORR flyovers/underpasses are going to turn into major transit points.
Outside lane can be used
Some digging to add space enough for a bus stop
May not be required. The whole ring road strech is 3 lanes, so between the ramps of the underpass section, the outside lane can be claimed for bus bay and stairs etc. to keep just 2 lanesfor that strech. It can megre back into 3 at the end of the ramps. The merge will also be graceful as the outside lane before and after the underpass will become an ramp only lane
Junction Bus Interchanges
Most ORR flyovers/underpasses are going to turn into major transit points
Absolutely. So far, no attention was being paid to pedestrian & bus interchange facilities when designing such grade separators. Once built, it is almost impossible to change as it might weaken the structure/s.
I think the only solution is what IDS has described - use stairways & shift bus halts closest to the junction, but again pedestrians will have to ascend some 20-odd feet, which is rather tiring for most & very cumbersome for the old - atleast, it's better than walking long distances to change buses.
Capsule lifts are an option, but knowing our services all too well, one wonders how long they will remain functional, & if so, how well will they be operated since there are costs for power. Private investment for building, maintaining & running the lifts can be sought with advertisement rights on hoardings near such junctions since ads within & around the lift might not attract investors - they will want to reach out to cars & other traffic going past the junctions also.
One thing I never understood
One thing I never understood about these interchange points - Taking an example from Marathahalli.
There are bus services which come on ORR from bellandur side (502C, I guess), which end at marathahalli. They mostly stop before the underpass, announce it as the last stop, and once all the passengers get down, they proceed to either above the bridge (ramp towards airport road) or through the underpass to take a u-turn before the return journey.
Similarly, buses on ORR which come from KRPuram and end at marathahalli (say 500T) stop before the flyover on the other side. After the last stop, they proceed to take a u-turn after the bridge.
Given that the buses have to go to the other side of the bridge anyway (or on the airport road ramp), to take the u-turn, why not change the last stop to the other side of the bridge (or on airport road)?
This would make the transit easier and, i guess does not involve additional resources.
In anycase, this is a solution to only a small subset of the interchang woes. But, I guess it might be worth pursuing.