[srikrishna717]

This was the case for last several years and reports only endorse the torture Bangaloreans have been going through. I hope the officials take note at least now.
Regarding the talk on Violators, In my view the primary reason is the lack of proper infrastructure which points to failure of successive Govts in Karnataka. Then Violators range from Two wheeler s, Auto, Cars , Tractors and to everyone. Again, lack of strict enforcement of rules lets everyone escape.
There is no single coordination body which schedules the projects in Bangalore ( may be true elsewhere also). For Example, there is a flyover construction on some junction, as it is people go through major jams, then you will find numerous digging ( BWSSB, Cabling), projects in the vicinity which make it a nightmare. Just see the spur of demands for tractors here, you find so many of them and carrying debris from buildings, road repair all the time!
Hope is such a nice thing and I wish the Metro, suburban network bring some relief someday!

[sajaijayan]

Allthough sad to see the report, it was very much expected. Sad because a beautiful, salibrous city, transformed into this gigantic mess in 30 years.
Like most who have written before me, I believe this situation could have been much better with better planning and an effective, concerned Government in place, however, I also do believe a part of the problem, lies with us the people.

I live in Dubai, a city with absolutely fantastic roads and a very good Metro, but we here also face monstrous traffic jams almost everyday, atleast during the peak hours. And if there is an accident or rains, then Traffic Jams that last hours. However, here, atleast the Government has done all they could. Seeing all this and other cities, not just in India, I feel traffic snarls are a norm rather than an exception in any place with a huge population, and, we the people have a responsibility to make our lives better too.
So, although we should definitely crib and try to pressurize our elected officials to do their jobs and improve the roads and public transport systems, we all should also do our bit.

In my humble opinion, some of things we could do besides trying to use public transport ( where possible)
1) If at all possible, live and work closer, to avoid the roads as much as possible.
2) Make it a point to car pool and ride share.
3) Corporates can make car pooling and car sharing/bike sharing easier by having a forum to share where each staff live.
4) Huge tech parks should again encourage car pooling by making it easier to find who stay close to each other etc across the Tech Park.
5) Many things, I think the super smart people of Bangalore can come up with to actually decrease the number of vehicles on the road.

If we are going to only depend on the Government to build and maintain our roads, build Metros and a effective rail network etc, it might be a futile dream.
One example I see often, hundreds of single passenger cars and taxies, from the Airport, all on the Airport road going the same direction. Using of car sharing could easily cut this in half. I have used Ola share, and I think the slight inconvenience is worth it, if you consider that you are doing your bit to reduce the traffic, pollution problem etc.
I sincerely hope the people of this wonderful city would collectively come together and everyone would try and do their bit, to not be a part of the problem, but to be a part of the solution to the Traffic Jams and that Bangalore can show the way to other cities how to go about solving or atleast reducing this mess.

Hoping for a better, smoother future for all Bangaloreans and ofcourse for all road users.

[vredesbyrd]

1.7 km to office can take me anywhere from 3 minutes to 30!

[am1m]

Guys, please! How often does our city place at the top in a global ranking?! It's great that we're being all modest and trying to give credit to others- the car owners are trying to say the bikers did all the hard work and the bikers are crediting the car owners. But truly, this number 1 traffic ranking has been a group effort and EVERY one of us has truly contributed in their own small and large ways. (Except those bicyclists, what fellows, risking their lives to choose a clean, efficient means of transport! Hope this ranking makes them realize the error of their ways soon and they start contributing to our defense of that ranking by using bikes and cars!)

It's not easy to suppress our basic intelligence that tells us there is really no point trying to jump a red light, go the wrong way, or try and squeeze into gaps because you'll simply cause a bigger jam. But we do it. And we honk continuously while doing it all- that's real multi-tasking and going the extra mile! It's not easy for our city planners to improve the km-of-bad-roads/usable-road ratio, one of the most important city performance indicators- but they find new and innovative means year-on-year! White-topping, magic box, elevated road, steel flyover, you name it, they've done it. And as an added bonus, they've managed to reduce the tree cover every single time. Overachievers!

The Namma Metro must be given some credit too. True, they did try to sabotage the ranking by completing 2(!) whole lines just a decade or so late, and giving people the option to not add to the traffic on those routes. But they are making up for it by really dragging their feet on the rest of the network and digging up all the roads while they do it. Slow starters, but they caught up nicely!

True, there was some FDI initially in some sectors like the ORR to make it happen in those sectors. Foreign companies did make some rather large investments to create the legendary traffic in those areas. But our local builders learnt quickly, really rose to the occasion and since then have focused their building designs on creating pure chaos. It's truly a sight to behold during morning and evening rush hour. Now even local startups are falling all over themselves to move in to those buildings, even though it's obvious that productivity will actually go down, employees will get stressed and the chaos will increase. Management even agrees to pay more rent for those benefits and in several cases, denies work from home policies, truly a visionary lot!

The auto guys, BMTC and Uber/Ola dudes ! I mean the contribution of these guys needs no elaboration really! The biggest contributors to road rage. They have been standout performers and contributors to this ranking for years now! Long before any of us saw it, they realized that if they just did their job well, this number one ranking would never be possible. And they took the hard steps to ensure that it all fell in place. Bad service, double meter, refusing fares, attacking passengers, parking and peeing under flyovers and footpaths. There's no measure that was too much to ask for from these guys, true rockstars!

As we begin our title defense this year, the important thing to remember is that we all can continue to help in some small way, everyday. Ride on footpaths, park bang on the side of the road to go to a shop, buy big cars for homes without any parking, take u-turns where there are none, patronize restaurants without any parking, resist learning what 'right of way' means or what all those funny lines on the road are meant for. It's not easy to resist that much driver education, no sir, it takes a special effort. It takes a special effort to ignore what we're doing wrong and to blame someone else, and even better, to blame the "'outsiders' in the city". But I'm confident we'll pull it off again!

Guys, it's a true example of how we all pulled together, a true 'Make in Bangalore' initiative!

[sajaijayan]

A link to the same problem in other cities. Traffic is a universal problem .

https://www.treehugger.com/bikes/you...e-traffic.html

[bugatti]

Originally Posted by sajaijayan

A link to the same problem in other cities. Traffic is a universal problem .

https://www.treehugger.com/bikes/you...e-traffic.html

Was reading today in the nytimes about Egypt's population crossing 100 million..
the last para of the article-

Ahmed Alaa, 24, a marketing agent, said his desire to avoid congestion often shaped his days, and often that means simply staying home. “It’s become so normalized, this congestion” he said. “You can’t set an appointment to do anything. The traffic is just so crazy.”

[landcruiser123]

Originally Posted by sajaijayan

A link to the same problem in other cities. Traffic is a universal problem .

True. Whether it's Vancouver, Kampala or Bangalore, traffic jams are a way of life in many cities. The measures taken to solve the problems are what is critical.

Some examples I can think of:
1. Improved bike lanes in NYC
2. Decent BART/Caltrain in and out of SF
3. Delhi metro
4. Singapore banning car registration
5. Elon Musk proposing underground tunnels in greater Los Angeles Metro area

Bangalore Metro is not complete, the last mile connectivity is an issue and the most of the city wasn't built in the colonial times. I've observed that Chennai, Delhi, and Kolkata have wider roads compared to Bangalore.

Local governments in India should not make the mistake of trying to solve traffic problems by building more road infrastructure. Taking a cue from London, NYC or Singapore, public transportation is the way to go.
India is far from having safe bike lanes due to lack of driving discipline. (I bike 8 miles to work on a few days)