[mpksuhas]

Originally Posted by venkyhere

Where does it say that bus lane and cycle/service lane are going to be merged ?

Correct, the letter doesn't have any mention on that. The merging of lane part was the one I was mentioning in the local resident group discussion.
It was mentioned that volunteers will be guiding vehicles to these lanes.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by vharihar

It indeed won't take too long, I expect about 2-3 years, bcoz they'll restore the medians and remove barricades as soon as via pillars are completed and U-girders are placed.

Well, we can hope. But going by how long the pillars for the Whitefield extension to the Purple Line took to come up, how many deadlines the Kengeri stretch has missed, and the state of the road for years under the pillars while the Green Line extension to Silk Institute was going on, I'm not optimistic. Pillar construction is certainly much quicker than it took initially. I remember CMH road in Indiranagar while the initial stretch was being constructed; compared to that the Whitefield stretch went exponentially faster. But severe traffic disruption is still going to last longer than just a couple of years on the ORR.

[fordday]

Originally Posted by am1m

Didn't the highly paid facilities and HR people of the companies on that stretch of the ORR anticipate this situation? Horrible ORR traffic has been a given for years.

Funnily our company moved from Bannerghatta road to ORR in 2017 due to metro construction and possible traffic jams in BG road. See where we landed up now
We actually moved to one of the worst designed IT parks in the ORR, Ecoworld.

Those highly paid people are just that, highly paid, period. That does not automatically make them any smart or more intelligent.

[ashis89]

Originally Posted by am1m

The circular says metro work is expected to take "1.5-2 years". Hilarious! Who are they trying to fool?! Has anything related to the metro construction ever completed that early?! Even extensions in the outskirts to already existing lines have missed multiple deadlines. And this is a brand new line along a traffic nightmare. More like 5-7 years minimum! (It will be awesome once it's completed, but till then...)

The Govt deadline for completion of the ORR stretch till KR Puram, is June 2025*. However, the Govt is requesting companies for WFH till Dec '22* as they hope to complete girder worker by then. Once complete, the road congestion would ease.

Disclaimer from me: Please take these dates with a bowl of salt.

[daretodream]

Karnataka govt to IT companies on ORR: Extend work from home till Dec 2022, cut traffic for Metro sake

Read more here

[vharihar]

Originally Posted by daretodream

Karnataka govt to IT companies on ORR: Extend work from home till Dec 2022, cut traffic for Metro sake

Read more here

A better solution is to uproot the bus and bicycle lanes separators *right away* and re-implement them *after* the medians are restored after metro pillars are done (ETA 2-3 years).

And I'm sure they'll come down to doing this albeit after dilly-dallying on this for quite some time and thereby ending up worsening traffic as well as delaying metro construction in the interim.

I think the people who call the shots (DULT, ORRCA etc) on the buslane decision-making need to warm up to the fact that short term pain here is unavoidable (for long term gain). Hence it's best to *prepone rather than delay* the start of the pain phase so that we can come out of it also sooner.

Never mind if they look foolish for having approved the bus and bicycle lanes in recent past. Just gotta lick that wound and move on. This isn't the first time that such mistakes have been made. It's anyway peanuts change compared to metro cost. Hence, if at all, we need to build these dedicated lanes *after* metro works.

I feel one good thing that did come out of the bus lane project was that we got very nice bus shelters, and I'm thankful for that. Let DULT etc claim credit for that (justifiably so), but barring that, we should push them to undo the bus lanes and bicycle lanes for now. Can redo those *after* metro work is finished to the point where medians are restored.

[AtheK]

Why uproot the pillars, they can just open the bus lane for everyone, and let everyone use it, that way they would not need to start from scratch, and only need to repair the one that break.

[allinbalance]

Originally Posted by anarchist

The typical Bangalorean Driver falls among one of these categories

@anarchist Absolutely hilarious and bang on accurate!! You write really well!! Many drivers on the roads seem like they are existing in some alternate reality or have electrical short in their brains.

[anandhsub]

The other thing that needs to be done is to restrict truckers to only the night as is the case in other parts of Bangalore.

Allowing them during the afternoon was fine if ORR was meant to be a Bangalore bypass but the very fact that a metro is being constructed implies it is part of the city now and hence doesnt make sense to have different rules.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by vharihar

but barring that, we should push them to undo the bus lanes and bicycle lanes for now. Can redo those *after* metro work is finished to the point where medians are restored.

Originally Posted by AtheK

Why uproot the pillars, they can just open the bus lane for everyone, and let everyone use it

Originally Posted by anandhsub

the other thing that needs to be done is to restrict truckers to only the night as is the case in other parts of Bangalore.

If the administrators running things in both the government and the IT companies on the ORR thought practically like you guys, we wouldn't have the traffic issues in the first place and we would certainly be able to manage the situation during metro construction with as little pain as possible! But alas, that is not the case.

They should have moved heaven and earth to start construction and get as much as possible done during the lockdown.

What will happen is a mishmash of regulations now, companies trying staggered timings, local authorities and traffic police trying a variety of diversions, one-ways, enforcing bus lane, removing bus lane, etc etc.

The metro is an awesome thing and must be pushed along and supported to the greatest extent possible. But the way the project has been/will be executed is going to cause a lot of pain for years.

Originally Posted by NPV

I don't how feasible this is since many companies are already discussing/planning to get employees back in offices sometime in the next few months.

The authorities have already issued a statement that they didn't mean work from home, they meant use bus/cycle lane. A "revised" circular is expected. Guess the builders who own the mega IT parks on the ORR and finance so many of the elected representatives in this city must have hit the roof with that circular and leaned on their contacts to get it 'updated'!

[NPV]

Originally Posted by daretodream

Karnataka govt to IT companies on ORR: Extend work from home till Dec 2022, cut traffic for Metro sake

Read a similar news item in today's Indianexpress newspaper as well - here

I don't how feasible this is since many companies are already discussing/planning to get employees back in offices sometime in the next few months.

[vharihar]

Originally Posted by AtheK

Why uproot the pillars, they can just open the bus lane for everyone, and let everyone use it, that way they would not need to start from scratch, and only need to repair the one that break.

Good idea to start with. But soon we'll have breakdowns etc and the need to overtake will be there. What then happen is selectively the plastic bollards will get force-removed by vehicles there on the ground. So while one part of me agrees with you, I'm more leaning towards completely removing the plastic bollards all over rather than make a pretense of it and defend the undefendable.

[Sebring]

Was shocked to see the Bangalore airport road ramp is a single lane. Returning was very confusing and it was 3AM (Intl. flight). Somehow hit the main road/highway. The airport is now a fort, with anti-aircraft guns mounted on trucks etc. Noticed some pretty heavy stuff.

[Ragul]

Originally Posted by Sebring

Was shocked to see the Bangalore airport road ramp is a single lane. Returning was very confusing and it was 3AM (Intl. flight). Somehow hit the main road/highway. The airport is now a fort, with anti-aircraft guns mounted on trucks etc. Noticed some pretty heavy stuff.

Hmm we are quite far away rom Afghanistan and AA guns are an absolute overkill for drones. Maybe its just about complying with mandated deployments for a certain threat level.

[mpksuhas]

Originally Posted by Sebring

The airport is now a fort, with anti-aircraft guns mounted on trucks etc.

President was in town last week, may be it was part of the security arrangement.