Road Widening in Bangalore - City convention on 4th July

 If public transport service is improved,

What is "improved"? Pl quantify/qualify. There are useless routes all running on main roads not touching the inside layouts. How do these help?

Stop awarding projects to private contractors and builders. Government and civic agencies should take up all infrastructure development activities

Why? So the protests against bad infrastructure can be a permanant feature in Bangalore? Instead insist on quality contractors and remove the lowest quote rule. If you want good facilities you cant pay peanuts or line the pockets. Fix the problem not the symptom.

Take measures to prevent vertical growth in the central parts of the city

Why? How does this save Bangalore? Monitoring the quality of vertical growth is important. Density needs to be retained around Public transport corridors. There is a needs to evaluate each project carefully and ask for features from the builder which will assist in making the densification fruitful and beneficial.

This attachment has too much generic ill-informed gyan passing off as pro development. Cannot be taken seriously. However I support their demand to get more information on the reasons and rationale for the set of roads chosen for road widening. We need to understand and help connect to how it fits into the overall scheme of things (if there is one), have alternates been considered? How those alternates can be realized. 

Commuter rail plug coming up

Ensuring availability of frequent train based mass transit to neighbouring cities is important to spread the density. Combined with proper zoning in these neighbouring growth centers it will help make housing affordable

First of all, I would offer my compliments to Save Bangalore Convention organisers for doing something more than what typical bloggers do - organise the citizens on a matter that concerns us and the future of our city! I have not come across any such attempt on a scale that covers the entire city on this issue of road widening by any individual or group in the past. I do know about ABIDe and such other groups that work with the establishment and conduct public interaction but there is none that is by the people, for the people and of the people - in a true democratic spirit!

While one may agree with some of their demands and perhaps, disgree on the others, I think, the attachment does capture the most improtant questions on public mind on this issue of road widening. I think, the group has caught the crux of the problem, which is 'for whom are all these developmental works meant for?' and all their argument revolves around doing things for the public and NOT for bureaucrats, politicians or contarctors which is the trend today.

Secondly, I did not find any data points that can be called ill-informed. In fact, my goolging provided me the information in more or less same lines!

Thirdly, I don't think they need to 'quantify' the number of buses, frequency of buses etc.. being a citizens' group but have raised the right point that public transport should have reliability, comprehensive connectivity, optimal frequency and affordability and that will be an effective check against increasing traffic density. Let town-planners and architects of repute and integrity do that job but under public supervision namely government, civis agencies and most importantly, vigilant citizens and citizen forums.

Apart from public transport, even measures like green lanes or road congestion tax for large private vehicles need to be considered.

Overall, all the best to their convention and I - for one - would definitely participate!

 I don't think they need to 'quantify' the number of buses, frequency of buses etc..

Why not? I say public transport is the best and I will not provide you any information to support that.

 but have raised the right point that public transport should have reliability, comprehensive connectivity, optimal frequency and affordability

You got all that from the word "improve"?

 I did not find any data points that can be called ill-informed. In fact, my goolging provided me the information in more or less same lines!

What lines? The lines that say dont award contracts to contractors? Dont grow vertical buildings in Bangalore? You got that from well informed sources? I would like to know these "well-informed" sources

So where is the list of roads? Lets look at some which we are familiar with and explore options. We may need to overlay them on a map to see what is being talked about

The problems with the so called for the people by the people etc is they propose no alternate solutions. To them stopping everything and staying still supposedly the solution.

Here is the list of roads to be widened

Here is another list

From the list I picked a couple of notified roads to see what purpose they would serve, Dinnur main road & Bagalur road towards BIA

Shops were razed a while ago to widen tannery road where dinnur main road connects. The advantage of Dinnur main road connecting to ORR/Hennur road is the access to the Commuter rail line passing through it. The station can be built below the Tannery road bridge across the train line. If connected properly this can take a load off Bellary road and provide an approach to North & East Bangalore via ORR and also connects to the airport corridor. Right now people have to come to Bellary road to go to ORR west or head to Jayamahal into the city. Beyond KB sandra you have only very narrow roads where cars get stuck after a while. 

Dinnur main cuts through some very populated areas and has good bus traffic. It is a PT catchment area. It can currently carry 2 lanes(one each way) but can get jammed if somebody parks on the road. It is lined by kirana stores, bakeries etc whose catchment is the immediate neighborhood. It can be considered to be an arterial road.

The list proposes 24 meters for Dinnur main road. It is a residential area and needs footpaths. It carries buses to KBsandra and beyond so will need bus stops & bus bays. So the ideal break up for 24 meters should be

 4 Lanes +1 turn lane, Trees+Parking lane+Bus bays, Paved pedestrian Sidewalk (with utilities+SWD underneath)

There is however a problem in widening the roads as it exists today as they are too curvy to be of any good. Geometric straighting should be done in many places if it has to be of any use.

This area will appreciate a properly done infrastructure, they have been given a raw deal for ages. I am sure BBMP will give them 6 lanes with asphalt end to end with no sidewalk.

@idontspam

The problems with the so called for the people by the people etc is they propose no alternate solutions. To them stopping everything and staying still supposedly the solution.

I added a post with the alternatives suggested by critics here: http://praja.in/en/blog/p...

Why does the load need to be taken off Bellary road? Hasn't this road been widened beyond recognition. As such it should be able to take the traffic.

Dinnur main road is a lifeline for the people living in that area as it carries bus traffic. There arent many roads which are wider than 40 ft., bus traffic shares the same 30 ft dinnur road that rest of the traffic shares and causes backups and messy grid locks when some idiot tries to overtake.

Access to commuter rail. Why can't such access be provided through the public transport system, since it has 'good bus traffic'?

Bus connectivity already exists. Priority train connectivity will ease the burden off the roads as trains take more people and is a true mass transit. There is a train line passing right thru some of the most congested areas in nagwara and sultanpalya. Bus is good as a feeder and as last mile as tin this case he train can cover a lot of the areas where bus cant go.

You mention that Dinnur main road area is a good catchment area for public transport. So the people are doing something right. Why should they be penalized to provide access to some other area for people coming on private vehicles from some other areas?

What other areas? There isnt a single road which is bigger than 40 ft. These roads were a planners mistake, we continue to penalize them by making them live in 20 to 40 ft wide roads. There isnt enough space on dinnur main road to have pedestrians, bus & private transport. 2 of them need to go. Only one can be accomodated without widening. You pick which two

Dinnur main road is lined by kirana stores, bakeries etc as you mention. In fact I would call it a thriving area with neighbourhood shops conveniently located for the residents living there. Why destroy that?

These kirana stores cant have access to a wider segment of population because there arent any bus stops on this narrow road. Every time a bus stops it puts the entire traffic out of whack. This means they get lesser people and hence are actually losing business. If you instead gave them shops along the same road after widening and provided bus stops, they will thrive. 

Parking leads to jams as you mentioned - wouldn't banning parking (I noticed very little parking the few times I went there) help with this problem? The people can be consulted and asked to see how they want to go about it - explain the pros/cons.

The side streets are very narrow, it cant take parking or you will end up clogging the side streets., the stores on the road need people to come and buy stuff. So provide parking all along on the widened road. Single multilevel parking complexes will not help in ribbon development situations it will only end up destroying more properties.

The road is narrow - wouldn't smaller buses (which BMTC is already using in some routes in Bangalore) be a good idea? Or maybe one of our domestic CV manufacturers could come up with a good design for our narrow roads.

Yes and a good design is to not build 20 ft & 30 ft roads, basics of planning call for pedestrian walking space, space for greenery and two clean lane of asphalt with bus bays & parking bays. How hard can this be? Its not rocket science its there is IRC handbooks. We need to correct this anamoly but BBMP cant do it come what my because they dont understand these things. They will only want 15 lanes of end to end asphalt.

Finally, wouldn't a better service by BMTC in terms of routes, reliability, and frequency be a better approach?

No there is already bus service but its painful on the narrow roads. You cant keep throwing buses at people hoping it will solve things. Its not panacea, you need multiple modes.