Shaping Bangalore's periphery - before its too late

Our city, Bengaluru has a core, and periphery. Let us define the area bound between  Outer Ring Road as the core, and beyond as periphery. If you look back from nineties onwards, City planners cared for people to live in the core, and work in the periphery. We got the likes of Peenya, Whitefield, Jigani/Bommasandra, Electronics city, Bidadi, and we pay today via Elevated Roads, and chokes at all points on Outer Ring Road that connect us to these peripheral work areas. It's rather easy to look back and criticize, but it may have been a casual call made back then. Nobody really thought the city's economy would triple itself in a decade.

But now, we know better. Growth is here to stay. The mess of mobility and criss crossed work-live location options are in front of us to manage. The safer bet is in focusing on the periphery, instead of obsessing with the core. The core gets swanky Metro, while the periphery gets Atal Sarige and crowded Buses, leave alone all talk of Commuter Rail. When BMTC starts thinking BPS, their team starts working from Hudson circle and out, and not Kadugodi and in. Etc etc. What we miss by doing things like not doing Metro on the "periphery" first, not thinking the BPS in from periphery first, not taking Commuter Rail seriously enough is a shot at "shaping" the periphery. You could manage Bengaluru's growth far better by shaping the still-soft, still-emerging periphery simply because 1) it would be relatively easy and cheap to do so, and 2) by shaping an emerging area, you get to dictate the mobility a bit, not the other way around.

Talking of Bengaluru shaping its periphery, it may not be that late yet. Look at the failures so far. Two broad guage lines going towards Mysore, yet no Railway linked mobility plan to "entice" you to prefer Kengeri (Rs 1500-2000/sqft?) over Rajrajeshwari Nagar (Rs 4000/sqft?). Swanky wide NH7 to Devanahalli, but no local mobility networks (aka "tributary" roads, zones and Buses) to fan out half a km away from NH7. On Sarjapur Road side, 'planned' growth remains confined to the 'ribbon' around the road, not at a scale that will have Rs 2000/sqft zones depressing the Rs 10000/sqft inflated core in serious ways.

Can't leave out governance setup out of the picture, but talking about our favorite subject, transportation, and getting specific about an example area - somewhat of a 'success' (is it?), Whitefield - what do we see?

Is there a transportation plan for Whitefield suburban area? Probably yes, because these are visible:

• Two visible Bus trunk corridors - G1/333/335, and the 500 series
• A TTMC as Mobility Hub for the area
• (on the drawing board) Metro till ITPL
• Two connect points with the "core" - Outer Ring road near Marathahalli, & KR Puram
• (on the drawing board) Signal Free Road corridor on Old Airport Road
• 600 route Buses directly to Electronics City Area ("Big Circle")

What stands out in above? What does not? Isn't it designed for people to come from the "core", spend the work day at Whitefield and return? Why no direct & heavy connect with the peripheral area on the North as well (like 600 route is for going to the South side). But then, there is a nice route G1, not obsessed with work area, touches entry points from even beyond Whitefield (Villages on the far east side), to makes it possible for low income groups to live far and work in. And then, we have the usual gripes. No use made of the Whitefield Railway station. No last mile connects for touching whatever corridors exist. And, despite Whitefield being a sizable "work area", no corridors go through and beyond Whitefield to enable clusters on the far east side. Why not create the options like  live in Malur and work in Whitefield?

What symptoms do we see for all of above? What solutions would one propose - both of the short term doable (Bus Priority Measures for corridors going through Whitefield) and long term/harder variety (like doing Commuter Rail) ?

I think its a subject - planning growth & mobility specifically for peripheries - that needs some quality attention. We can raise the pitch by doing some detailing on one or two areas (Whitefield, Anekal, Bidadi etc). And this probably is my 3rd attempt at stirring this up on Praja :)

cheers,
SB aka Pranav