[Shanenanigans]

Originally Posted by NPV

What's the latest update on the White topping exercise on the Outer Ring Road between Rammurthy Nagar and Hebbal & back (reverse direction) ?

For someone traveling from Indiranagar to Sahakarnagar is it better to avoid the ORR and stick to the city route via Benson town, Bellary Road ?

Even though I moved recently from Jakkur to Hedge Nagar, until the ORR white topping work is done, I'm avoiding it like the plague.

The issue is that even though one side is being white topped (and now, the Kasturinagar section going toward Hebbal on the other side), the service roads are choked up like nobody's business.

As a result, whether I'm driving or riding back home from work at Indiranagar, I still travel through the city going through Cox Town, Lingarajpuram and the rest, to get onto the ORR from the Hennur Bagalur Road, at which point, it's a quick fifteen minute drive home.

[srvm]

Originally Posted by NPV

What's the latest update on the White topping exercise on the Outer Ring Road between Rammurthy Nagar and Hebbal & back (reverse direction) ?

For someone traveling from Indiranagar to Sahakarnagar is it better to avoid the ORR and stick to the city route via Benson town, Bellary Road ?

I travelled from Jeevan Bhima nagar to Hebbal yesterday (started around 12 noon) on my bike.
I took road behind Byappanahalli metro station and joined ORR-Service road near Kasturi Nagar. Had to travel on the service road for less than 1km and join ORR main road just before Ramamurthy Nagar underpass (near SNR Tyres). Thereafter it is regular smooth flowing traffic on ORR till Hebbal.
Also, the traffic on service road was slow but moving constantly. Reached Hebbal junction by 12.35pm.

Did not take the ORR route on the way back from Hebbal to Jeevan Bhima nagar.

[shreyascashyap]

Hi BHPians! Needed an update from you all.
I just got married last week and the wifey is now officially living with me after 4 years of sneaking around
We stay near Basveshwarnagar and her office is at PSN in Whitefield. Taking own transport is not an option as she does not know how to drive, besides, driving up and down to whitefield daily is going to be a nightmare.
We are considering taking the metro either from rajajinagar or hosahalli and going till baiyappanahalli. Looking at options from the metro station there onwards towards whitefield. I have heard that there is a suburban train or a regular BMTC bus that you can take. Can anyone shed light on the suburban train timings? Is it safe for a single lady to use daily?
Haven't lived in Bangalore these last couple of years so I am not aware of the latest developments with regards to the suburban train. any info/help you can point me towards will be highly appreciated

[NPV]

Originally Posted by shreyascashyap

Haven't lived in Bangalore these last couple of years so I am not aware of the latest developments with regards to the suburban train. any info/help you can point me towards will be highly appreciated

While I don't know the exact timings for the suburban trains, I do know people take that regularly to commute between south Bangalore and Whitefield.
I think she can consider these 2 options:
1. Metro from your place in south Bangalore to Baiyappanahalli (terminus). There is an exit from the metro station to the railway station so she can connect to the suburban train easily.

2. Metro from south Bangalore to Swami Vivekananda station. I think bus connectivity to Whitfield is better from Swami Vivekananda station which is the metro station just before Baiyappanahalli.

[NPV]

Update from my drive today:
Had some work in Indiranagar, so from Indiranagar I took the old Madras road-Coles park-Nandidurga road-Mekhri circle-Hebbal-Sahakaranagar route. It was an easy drive with less traffic and no bottlenecks.

On the way back, I took a chance taking the ORR route and it was fine till just after Manyata where the white topping work is in progress, from here it was slow moving bumper to bumper traffic on the service road sections (couple of places there are diversions back to the main carriageway lanes). Only because traffic wasn't as dense this was manageable. I empathize with people undergoing this painful drive during the weekday office commute.
In a few days time, it will become hellish in the other direction as well!

[Rajeevraj]

Originally Posted by shreyascashyap

Hi BHPians! Needed an update from you all.
I just got married last week and the wifey is now officially living with me after 4 years of sneaking around
We stay near Basveshwarnagar and her office is at PSN in Whitefield. Taking own transport is not an option as she does not know how to drive, besides, driving up and down to whitefield daily is going to be a nightmare.
We are considering taking the metro either from rajajinagar or hosahalli and going till baiyappanahalli. Looking at options from the metro station there onwards towards whitefield. I have heard that there is a suburban train or a regular BMTC bus that you can take. Can anyone shed light on the suburban train timings? Is it safe for a single lady to use daily?

There are several passenger train services both in the morning and evening between byapanahalli and Whitefield. I think there are 3 or 4 services between 7.30 and 9.30. The most recently introduced one is the byapanahalli-whitefield passenger which I think is at 8.25 from bypanahalli and reaches Whitefield in 15min. You can check trainenquiry.com for exact timings.

The closest station to PSN is Hoodi if I am not mistaken. Need to check the last mile connectivity options from the station. Don't think safety is an issue since a lot of people use these services now. May be crowded though.

[fordday]

Tried to take my kid and family to Bannerghatta Park. It was 3 km long traffic jam before the gate. Returned back after moving 1 km in 30 mins from the start of the jam.

Seems whole of Bangalore came to bannerghatta park today.

[Vysakh]

Originally Posted by NPV

2. Metro from south Bangalore to Swami Vivekananda station. I think bus connectivity to Whitfield is better from Swami Vivekananda station which is the metro station just before Baiyappanahalli.

Are there buses from Swami Vivekandanda station to whitefield that don't stop at Baiyappanahalli ?

[NPV]

Originally Posted by Vysakh

Are there buses from Swami Vivekandanda station to whitefield that don't stop at Baiyappanahalli ?

I'm not sure about that, but BMRCL had put out notices to that effect asking commuters to use Swami Vivekananda station for the bus connectivity to Whitefield. This was few months ago when Phase 1 was fully completed. I also thought this was because the junction outside Baiyappanahalli terminus was getting too crowded and causing slow moving traffic and the plan was to eliminate these buses stopping there ?

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by shreyascashyap

We stay near Basveshwarnagar and her office is at PSN in Whitefield. Taking own transport is not an option as she does not know how to drive, besides, driving up and down to whitefield daily is going to be a nightmare.
We are considering taking the metro either from rajajinagar or hosahalli and going till baiyappanahalli. Looking at options from the metro station there onwards towards whitefield. I have heard that there is a suburban train or a regular BMTC bus that you can take. Can anyone shed light on the suburban train timings? Is it safe for a single lady to use daily?
Haven't lived in Bangalore these last couple of years so I am not aware of the latest developments with regards to the suburban train. any info/help you can point me towards will be highly appreciated

Would you also share with us the timings of her work or the expected timing? Based on that I can help you out with the options.

• If her office provides transport, then its a good idea for her to opt for it. They can reach your house via the ring road and can take different routes to reach there in a decent amount of time.
• Office transport can also be used to commute between Metro station and PSN.
• However, I now feel that getting to the metro station is itself a big pain these days owing to the Metro construction and the mess at Tin factory due to white topping of the ORR. Hence, taking public transport to the metro station and to office will not be a nice experience IMO.
• Lets suppose there is no office transport. Then the options for public transport between BYPL and PSN will be train or bus, apart from cabs. Also suggest her to use QuickRide, a beautiful car pooling app. Cheap, safe and efficient.
• Coming to BMTC Feeders, it takes around 30 mins on a good day and more than an hour on a bad day to reach PSN from BYPL. On the return route, it will be 45mins in Non peak hours to 2 hours on a bad day.
• Trains from BYPL to Hoodi in the morning is scarce. There is one departing BYPL at 725, and the next special train at 825 usually leaves later. However, this hardly takes at most 20 mins to reach Hoodi so if the timings can be synced, this is the best alternate. Lots of people and crowded trains, but safe and manageable. Cost is 10 bucks one way which is the best VFM.
• On the return journey, there are three trains between 4-5 which dont have any reliable timing. After that there are two trains between 6-630. Thats it. Again, it is a 15 mins journey and the crowd is variable. Sometimes the trains are empty, since one train would have taken all the crowd and the next one would have less takers.
• Between Hoodi and PSN, she can avail a pooled cab or catch a bus for one stop. However, taking the bus will require a walk of around 300m. Autos charge mindlessly and Ola auto hasnt worked for me.

Originally Posted by NPV

I'm not sure about that, but BMRCL had put out notices to that effect asking commuters to use Swami Vivekananda station for the bus connectivity to Whitefield. This was few months ago when Phase 1 was fully completed. I also thought this was because the junction outside Baiyappanahalli terminus was getting too crowded and causing slow moving traffic and the plan was to eliminate these buses stopping there ?

When the feeder service was started, they did not have the brains to start buses from SV Road. Hence, all the buses were stationed at BYPL before starting their trip which led to the mess. Hence, they start from SV Road but do stop at BYPL to pick up passengers. The downside is in case we board from SV Road, the bus will come to BYPL and will wait until it is filled, which in some cases takes around ten minutes. However, if you board directly at BYPL, you will be able to move out faster. At least for me, I get annoyed if my transit takes too long. Once the bus waited for ten minutes at BYPL though there were not many takers. Gave the driver and conductor an earful and then they started their journey.

[sleepyhead148]

Merry Christmas. Let's rejoice because this is the season and also, as of today morning, BBMP has suspended white topping 'bhagya' until further notice.

And as of now, all work in progress will be finished by March.

According to Sampath Raj, the decision to temporarily suspend the works was taken during the meeting. The Mayor said the BBMP will suspend the work after completing the ongoing portions. Further decisions will be taken after meeting with chief minister, the mayor said.

Source

[srishiva]

One kilometer of white topping takes 1 month ! In a city that has many times the vehicles than the roads can handle, is it a wise thing to do ? A layer of good quality tar road would have been right and would have saved a lot of money too.
Do they have plans to lay concrete roads for new roads in newer areas ? No. Absolute lack of planning which is what we are famous for as a country. But then to go and create even more problems is pathetic

[sleepyhead148]

Originally Posted by srishiva

Do they have plans to lay concrete roads for new roads in newer areas ?

Wait till you read the Revised Master Plan for Bengaluru - 2031 which advocates mixed land use. It has earmarked newer areas for land use, that clearly favours builders to come up with more ORR like corridors. The document is available for download on BDA's website.

Here's a quote from the document, pertaining to the need for the flyover from Ejipura to Indian Institute of Astrophysics (Koramangala Water Tank).

Consequently, what has translated on the ground is vastly different from what was anticipated. To quote an example: the provision of section 14 A (3) of KTPC Act, 1961 and zoning regulations of Mutation Corridor Land Use has led to large scale commercial developments at certain junctions limiting the improvement of junctions. This has resulted
in traffic congestion which can be observed in the proposed and exiting land use at the Sony World Junction area in the Koramangala Planning District (Figure 4 and Figure 5). Similarly, in a recent judgment, the Hon'ble High Court has directed that no commercial activities shall be allowed in residential land use zone on roads upto 40 ft. The Authority has accordingly
incorporated the directions as part of the Zoning Regulations as well as the Proposed Land Use for RMP-2031.

Figure 4:



Figure 5:

[hrman]

Originally Posted by sleepyhead148

Merry Christmas. Let's rejoice because this is the season and also, as of today morning, BBMP has suspended white topping 'bhagya' until further notice.

And as of now, all work in progress will be finished by March.

Source

I cant even comprehend or imagine the incompetency and myopic vision of the government and civic body. Such a set of fruitcakes are running our cities.

The wise thing would have been to divide each road in two sections and complete one section at a time, allowing slow movement of traffic instead of diverting and completely stopping one side. And now they plan to suspend work after coming to terms with their narrow thought process and messed up planning.

These are the very brainy officials we ourselves elected to power. Cant help but

[srishiva]

They have already planned the PRR to cause similar bottle necks. They have reduced the width of the road and are giving away such free land for commercial development. There is no hope :(
Only hope is using the metro if they can implement it in a wider area.