[suhaas307]

Originally Posted by abhi7013

Your statements are both illogical and offensive at the same time. Please feel free to blame the two and three wheelers all you want for the way they ride and i fully accept that most of these guys are a nuisance to others on road..

Banning is never the solution, but the point my friend here is trying to make is the manner in which two wheelers and three wheelers conduct themselves.

For every two wheeler or three wheeler that follows traffic laws, there are 10 that don't. I spend around a minute every day at Richmond Circle, Bangalore, and in that single minute I find at least 5 two wheelers and 3 auto rickshaws violating the law or attempting to violate the law.

Most of them are always in a tearing hurry to get somewhere, but more often than not they are the ones always late. In this bid to make quick time, they jump traffic signals, they ride on footpaths, they ride along the wrong way on a one-way street, etc. I see at least 10 violations every day in my 20 minute commute everyday! And most of them are by two wheelers and three wheelers.

And what they don't understand is if they make a mistake and fall off their bikes, everyone else around them gets blamed.

I perfectly understand the significance and need for two wheelers in congested cities like Bangalore. It makes sense, no doubt. But weaving through traffic and trying to fit into spaces that are seemingly impossible to negotiate is simply not done.

If you cannot follow basic traffic etiquette or even traffic laws, then you do not deserve to ride/drive, and this goes for all road users, irrespective of whether they use four wheels or two.

In your post, you seem to defend the actions of two wheel riders and that's sad. Do you realise that haphazard driving and riding is what leads to the congestion. If everyone just sticks to their lanes and respects other fellow road users, we wouldn't have the sort of congestion we face at the moment.

[ankan.m.blr]

Originally Posted by blackwasp

According to a media report, Bangalore is the most congested city in the world in terms of traffic. The city came first among 425 cities across 57 countries according to a report by TomTom.

Drivers in the city can expect to spend an additional 71% of their time stuck in traffic. In 2019, commuters spent on an average, 243 hours in traffic, while driving in peak hours. The highest congestion (103%) was reported on August 20, 2019.

Bangalore-ites spent up to 5 hours a year extra for a 30-minute commute when they left their offices on Friday between 7-8 pm, which were the worst rush hours for the city.

Indian cities like Mumbai, Pune and New Delhi featured in the fourth, fifth and eighth position respectively. Between 2018 to 2019, congestion increased in over 239 cities, while only 63 cities had a small decline in traffic congestion among the cities surveyed.

Attachment 1962997

Source

Link to the Team-BHP News

When I opened the thread I was This photo was captured by me !

Anyway, of late I feel there is an improvement of the traffic sense at least nearby my area (Marathalli - Kadubisenahalli - Sarjapur Road). Traffic jams are getting bigger, but a little bit of order is present now a days. Am I being too optimistic?

[BoothRoyd]

Yay! Finally No.1 at something. .
Take that Pune, Mumbai and Delhi walahs. You may be better at IPL than us, but try and beat that. In the words of Shoaib Akhtar, this is "phainta laga diya" moment. We have completely "Phaintad" you.

News Flash : Entire RCB team misses match because they were stuck in traffic. They are now protesting outside the Chinnaswamy demanding better "working conditions".

Oh what a feeling it is to see your car worth lakhs of hard earned rupees parked at home while you are awaiting your Uber/Ola rides, which by the way are stuck in traffic too..

I think the time is right to buy the biggest SUV money can buy. Ford F-150? Yeah, bring it on. I just love sitting in my car and taking in all the sun.

Thanks! Rant over. Back to normalcy. Om Shanti Om!

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by msdivy

Rarely I get to be part of something which is No 1 in the world. I am happy & honored to have done my bit and contributed to achieving this distinction.

Having said that, the blame for the credit of worst traffic rests solely on Governing authority (all, Local body, State & central Govts). There has no additional road infrastructure planned in the last 15 years. Whatever being done was planned 20 years ago. But road users have doubled/tripled in that time. Bangalore daily has 1,750 new vehicle registrations. For a population of 120 lakhs, there are 80 lakhs vehicles as of 2019 .

In the last 15 years, the road infrastructure enhancements have been,
* reclaiming 5 feet road from the footpath
* blocking median openings on roads
* converting few junctions into the underpass
* replacing tar on top layer road with concrete
* tweaking traffic light timeouts
* raising the height of road divider from 6 inches to 2 feet

There has been no new roads added or new lanes added to existing roads.

It is unfair to blame pedestrians, two-wheelers, autos, cars, TTs, buses, trucks since even if all follow traffic rules and exhibit exemplary traffic sense, still it will be the worst traffic (in terms of time spent getting from A to B).

[Naetik30]

Originally Posted by CarNerd

Worst traffic even after having Namma Metro.

Namma Metro planners are jokers to say the best about them. This may sound like a rant. But who would plan for Phase I without even considering any of the high density corridors. Where they planning for a Toy train in Bangalore for Phase I?

Roads near Metro construction routes look like a granite quarry!!!
Two wheeler (a.k.a side winder missiles) and auto riders on ORR are committing hara-kiri - For the way they drive and for sitting through all the pollution.

And since many talked specifically about Eco space, lets also talk about some campus planning by private companies. RMZ Eco space in this case. FYI - Eco space is actually two tech parks with one gateway to hell for both put together (Eco space and Pritech). Net effect - You have 1000s of cars and bikes having to squeeze through a gate that can accomodate 2 vehicles at a time. Someone made big bucks in approving this road plan for the tech park. And lets now talk about the entry and exit curves for this tech park.

If you are coming from Silk Board side, you first line your self up on single lane between two fly overs, then you take a U turn at a 8 way intersection, then you get on to a service road, cross the Ecoworld exit gate, cross Intel exit gate, then slight left onto the Ecospace park entrance, then make a quarter circle-right turn, then a perpendicular left to enter the Eco space park. I think I got it right. Kudos to the architect who planned this.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by Naetik30

But who would plan for Phase I without even considering any of the high-density corridors. Where they planning for a Toy train in Bangalore for Phase I?

When metro was planned for Bangalore (starting in 1997), the current Phase 1 corridor was high-density area. ORR was not complete, let alone having traffic.

(In 1997, there was more traffic towards Hosur from Dairy circle and hence the silk board flyover is that direction. Tables turned starting in 2006 and traffic started to increase on ORR).

[blackwasp]

Originally Posted by ankan.m.blr

When I opened the thread I was This photo was captured by me !

You are right. Picked up from below:

Originally Posted by ankan.m.blr

Take a look at this photo, taken at 4.30 PM today, in front of EcoSpace.

I didn't have to do much, just run a search for "Bangalore traffic" and this is the first image that pops up!

[manjunathkl]

Being Bangalorean since birth, I can say something - Bangalore traffic is not worse than NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai or any other major city in India and even some populous cities abroad like LA, Dubai.

Depending on the technique used to measure traffic, any city can be branded as the worst traffic or otherwise. These cities are so large - some roads will be jammed perpetually others will not see any jams. It is simply pointless to rate cities like this. Delhi has been branded as worst air quality (if this is actually that bad, people should just drop dead if they don't wear an air purifier mask) - then how come its population is increasing every decade?

Also, Indian media spares no opportunity to bring a bad name to India. I don't trust any media report these days. I draw conclusions on my own observations. As I see it, Bangalore traffic has gone worse over the years but it is fully in line with other cities in India and around the world.

[greatgyan]

Originally Posted by Naetik30

Namma Metro planners are jokers to say the best about them. This may sound like a rant. But who would plan for Phase I without even considering any of the high density corridors. Where they planning for a Toy train in Bangalore for Phase I?

And since many talked specifically about Eco space, lets also talk about some campus planning by private companies. RMZ Eco space in this case. FYI - Eco space is actually two tech parks with one gateway to hell for both put together (Eco space and Pritech). Net effect - You have 1000s of cars and bikes having to squeeze through a gate that can accomodate 2 vehicles at a time. Someone made big bucks in approving this road plan for the tech park. And lets now talk about the entry and exit curves for this tech park.

Namma Metro Phase 1 construction started in 2007, planning would have taken place around 2002-2003 I guess, In those days, none of these tech parks existed and the current areas around outer ring road along with whitefield were not even considered to be a part of Bangalore.

The problem is the speed of construction of Metro, the first phase was scheduled to be completed by 2011, but was actually opened in 2017. I mean you can get delayed by a few months or 1 year max, but we set another record here, a delay of full 6 years.

Similarly, phase 2 was originally scheduled to be completed and operational by 2021, and no prizes for guessing that we'll be having another massive delay here (although a few parts maybe operational).

Coming to the tech parks along Outer Ring Road (ORR). When the plan for ORR was made, all these areas were actually villages and had huge tracts of land available at cheap prices. Hence, all these builders (Embassy, Prestige, RMZ etc.) purchased acres of land in this area, got approvals using "under the table" method and started construction one after the other. The end result of that is in front of us.

Just consider the stretch from Marathalli bridge to Iblur junction, we have RMZ Ecospace and Ecoworld, Embassy Tech Village, Cessna Business Park, Prestige Tech Park, Pritech, Oracle Campus etc. Huge tech parks all of them with lakhs of employees working, all of this crammed together in just about 8 kms stretch of the ORR, and ORR being the only main access road for all these parks, hence the atrocious traffic condition. (And I haven't even mentioned the multiple standalone buildings and offices along this stretch.)

[opendro]

Mumbai and Bengaluru have comparable peak times and traffic valume if you consider that Bengaluru is about 30 minutes east of Mumbai in terms of sunrise.

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

Although the news article (like others news agencies) has focused on the catchy heading wrt Bangalore, the actual report/portal from TomTom provides a lot of interesting insights and details

• For example - peak traffic hours start an hour earlier in Bangalore compared to Mumbai (and Delhi) both mornings & evenings!
  
  Attachment 1963009
  
  Attachment 1963007
  
  
• The additional time spent on a daily basis during peak hours @ Bangalore - seems less
  
  Attachment 1963008
  
  
• Interesting stat - check out the congestion % for Mumbai at 12 AM (as compared to single digits % for Bangalore and even global cities like New York and London) - clearly this is the city that never sleeps!

[opendro]

I commute through the famous ecospace and embassy tech park on ORR on Mondays and Fridays at peak time (8:30AM and 6PM). But I use bicycle and use service roads (whichever way it suits me) and empty pavement between the service road and main road. I take a consistent 33 to 35 minutes in the morning and 40 to 45 minutes in the evening for a 12.5 km stretch which my motorcycle had usually taken about 75 to 90 minutes. It is almost double the time on motorcycle and a bit more than double on car when compared to a bicycle. I still find it worthless spending more than 5 hours a week on commuting. So, I use a temporary seat in an office near my home (4km) for 3 days a week. It works well any time of the day.

[suhaas307]

Originally Posted by greatgyan

The problem is the speed of construction of Metro, the first phase was scheduled to be completed by 2011, but was actually opened in 2017. I mean you can get delayed by a few months or 1 year max, but we set another record here, a delay of full 6 years.

Similarly, phase 2 was originally scheduled to be completed and operational by 2021, and no prizes for guessing that we'll be having another massive delay here (although a few parts maybe operational).

Delays in commissioning the various phases of the metro can be attributed to a few reasons:

1) land acquisition - getting land for the stations and stops is the hardest thing. People are generally not willing to let go of their lands, even if the compensation awarded is reasonable or fair. Of course there are cases where the compensation is not good and then there are cases where people just don't want to let go of the land. These circumstances result in long drawn and expensive litigation.

2) General non-cooperation from various govt. authorities and corporations.

3) Govt. Tenders calling for the lowest bids from private players is a flawed concept / process that leaves room for a lot of corruption and litigation, not to mention the diluted quality control processes adopted to ensure that the project fits the budget. Remember, even the slightest delays allow the govt. entity to levy liquidated damages and such delays will further drive up the costs of the project.

These are just a few examples. But these checks and balances ensure the government does not steam-roll over the common man and put a pillar in his living room, the way governments of countries like China or Russia would.

[Achilles]

My daily office commute in Whitefield area takes an average speed of 10 kmph (worst case, once I'd crawled at 1 kmph!!). In Bangalore, distance is measured in time!!! This should give an idea of the traffic intensity of Bangalore.

Having driven in Bangalore city, traffic density at my home town or any other cities where I drive feels like nothing at all!!

[pkothak]

Considering many IT companies located in prime areas and their employees who are using their own transport are one of the reasons for these Traffic Jams, I got this thought in my mind.

Wherever it is possible, companies should allow such employees to work from home at least 2 days in a week.

Maybe this should become a mandatory rule passed by Govt. to all the IT companies, with this at least 10 % of the traffic is reduced for the busy weekdays.... if that happens its a bonus for other 90% . As I said just it is just a thought from my end which got flashed after reading few responses in this thread.

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by suhaas307

In your post, you seem to defend the actions of two wheel riders and that's sad. Do you realise that haphazard driving and riding is what leads to the congestion. If everyone just sticks to their lanes and respects other fellow road users, we wouldn't have the sort of congestion we face at the moment.

Beautiful, couldn't have put it any better if I tried, that was my entire point, it's obvious that haphazard riding will lead to an eternal paranoia for people with bigger vehicles who're unable to judge distances as accurately as bikes, we always have to mentally focus on braking and that is emotionally exhausting, traumatic at times and in case a biker falls due to their fault of abruptly coming in front of us, we'll be lynched like a criminal in the middle of the road, explanations or not.

I'm still optimistic though, if discipline is indoctrinated into drivers/riders and if law enforcement cracks down equally hard on autos and two wheelers, we'll all see almost 33% improvement in jams, because the element of shock is taken out and motoring becomes a predictable experience where no one rushes into our lane to gain 10 feet of distance, two wheelers and rickshaws are exponents of this art form. Next if and when BBMP and assorted "developmental" organizations are done with pipe laying, white topping, cable digging, drain cleaning etc, they should ideally focus on road quality, pothole covering, rough patch tarring, overall the entire city now needs a full coat of bitumen (key areas spanning hardly 100 km in total), that'll further improve the scene by 33%.

I also drive quite often to Richmond Circle, Langford Town, Lavelle Road etc. We seem to have similar experiences as a result.