[werfish]

Originally Posted by 500ContyCruiser

Yes, that is one big problem. And there is no coordination among these departments.

I believe it is time to shift military base outside of city.

How does shifting the army areas out of City help in coordination among urban authorities..
For God's sake, its only due to the army area that we have some oxygen, please don't scheme to replace them with malls and apartments.

[sachinpk]

Originally Posted by 500ContyCruiser

Yes, that is one big problem. And there is no coordination among these departments.

A nodal agency coordinating with others may be a solution, but in Indian scenario its effectiveness becomes a question mark. Turf wars etc. would crop in for sure.

I believe it is time to shift military base outside of city.

I humbly disagree. The defence establishments in Bangalore City are mainly the Regimental Centres. These occupy large areas of land, but if you have noticed they manage their own things quite well. They have well laid roads, and smooth flowing traffic. They have their own CSD canteens, living quarters etc. These are in a way self-sufficient establishments. Then they have a few office buildings in M.G Road, Cubbon Road area. Again these are comparatively small buildings with lesser number of people working out of them. For example Madras Engineering Group at Ulsoor would have at least 5000-6000 folks out there. But all of them work inside their own area, and bearly does that lead to a traffic congestion in Ulsoor area.

To be frank (and after seeing how things work in Bengaluru) if Army gives up it lands, it would NOT improve things at all. We would have all the Prestiges, Mantris, Embassies eating up all that land, building up high rises and selling the area for crores. Again traffic from these areas would just hit the very same roads as we have now. Think about it . Inner Ring Road did not have any major traffic 12 years back. On one side you had the ASC Centre, on the other side HAL Airport. Now there comes the Embassy Golf links and all those tech.parks out there. The mess started then on. DRDO campus, Kaggadaspura etc. were peaceful (and empty as well) till Bagmane Tech.Park came in. Now how is the situation out there?

Another famous junction the ORR-Sarjapur Road junction, and the various smaller roads through Haralur etc. This huge land was once the Artillery Firing Range. It still has a auxiliary camps of ASC and Military Police. Are they causing traffic jams? No it is thanks to the whole area becoming a commercial area, with enough and more tech parks, housing colonies etc. Now what happens if the auxiliary camps gets removed? Again Shobha, Krystal, Mantri etc. would take that land - build commercial buildings or apartments - give it a funny English name, and then sell it off.

On this point, I may not be impartial because of my love & respect to the defence forces . If Bengaluru still has some green belt within the city, it is because of the defence establishments.

[srishiva]

The defense areas do give the city some open spaces. But to say that they are what that provide greenery is not right. Old parts of the city have much more parks, gardens, avenues than the military areas.
Its the newer areas and private developments in the city that have screwed up everything. No roads and only buildings are coming up.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by sachinpk

How ever I am bit pessimistic that traffic situation in Bengaluru would improve any time in the near future. That is because there are too many vehicles now running in the city. There is also a limit to how much roads can be widened (or improved). So a long lasting solution would only come when vehicles miraculously keep off the roads .

I agree with you 100% (in pessimism). In 1990, the number of vehicles in Bangalore were 8 lakhs. Now it is 56 lakhs. Some 3000 to 5000 cars are sold in Bangalore every month. Any space on road found will be quickly consumed by these new vehicles. Road widening is almost impossible due to cost involved in acquiring land. Addition to infrastructure will have to consider Metro routes & capacity, which is unknown now. So no infrastructure planning will not happen till Metro is complete. Earlier Silk board junction was worse. Now every junction is turning into Silk board. Things will only get worse from here.

And it was an eye-opener. Bengaluru city is just not managed by one single entity. Roads are maintained by one organisation (PWD?). Water Supply and Sewerage management is done by another. Power Supply is maintained by BESCOM. Road designs are done by yet another agency. Military land and establishments are managed by their own establishments. Fire & Safety is managed by Fire Brigade. Telecommunication is managed by BSNL and multiple other vendors. Budget allocations, future planning is done by other separate units - mainly managed by elected representatives. And in this huge cog wheels, two cogs are the Traffic Police and the Law & Order Police. So for poor roads, or poor road design there is no point in arguing with a Traffic Police officer. A transformer is not placed correctly, no point in blaming the police.

That is true for most cities. Different specialized groups manage their activities. These are huge organizations, it is difficult for them to co-ordinate among themselves, forget coordinating with outside.

Govt can create single window system for managing Bangalore city. That might ease the pain a bit for sometime.

[ILTDrive]

Originally Posted by msdivy

Govt can create single window system for managing Bangalore city. That might ease the pain a bit for sometime.

They are actually looking/thinking of bifurcating the BBMP into 3-4 different and smaller entities to be able to manage the city better. I am not sure how the other organizations (BESCOM, BWSSB...) will be involved in this activity.

[ambivalent_98]

Isn't the policy paralysis responsible for the situation that is ? All over the world cities are faced with growing traffic. There are ways and means to deal with this. I completely agree that road-widening cannot be a solution. However identifying the bottlenecks and solving the problem at the root is important. In Bangalore the problem is usually not solved but pushed elsewhere. Some basic infrastructure has to be started building now else this problem will grow in epic proportions.
Also to get private vehicles of the road , the public transport must be of very high reliability and quality and reach. Right now this simply is a pipe dream. In general many not all problems can be solved by common sense and strict implementation.

[500ContyCruiser]

Originally Posted by werfish

How does shifting the army areas out of City help in coordination among urban authorities..

No, these two are not related. My thought of shifting army was majorly based on widening of roads with growing vehicle numbers.

Originally Posted by werfish

For God's sake, its only due to the army area that we have some oxygen, please don't scheme to replace them with malls and apartments.

Originally Posted by sachinpk

If Bengaluru still has some green belt within the city, it is because of the defence establishments.

What do we say about old Bangalore? Which has more number of trees and gardens still alive. These areas never or very less presence of army.

I look at the way, since we have army around the Trinity circle and towards old airport road. Most of the times, the road is half blocked by army trucks (or the trucks to deliver goods), which creates lots of bottle neck.

I would blame the concerned authorities for not planning the city properly.

[sachinpk]

Originally Posted by 500ContyCruiser

I look at the way, since we have army around the Trinity circle and towards old airport road. Most of the times, the road is half blocked by army trucks (or the trucks to deliver goods), which creates lots of bottle neck.

Figured it out. You are talking about the CSD Canteen Stores which comes on the road from Trinity Circle to ASC Centre circle. This is a ware house for the Canteen Stores Department, including storage of liquor. Mainly it would be civilian trucks which would be blocking the road. Yes, this is one area where a bit more fine tuning would help. Either allow the trucks only in the night, or BTP can work with Army authorities to figure out if they have got better parking space inside the ware house.

Bangalore Police and Army authorities have a liaison unit exclusively to sort out issues (like these and bigger ones) between themselves.

[K a s h]

Has anyone got any update about the new Traffic plan for whitefield area (effective Monday Nov 22, 2014)? Got this on my inbox today!

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by K a s h

Has anyone got any update about the new Traffic plan for whitefield area (effective Monday Nov 22, 2014)? Got this on my inbox today!

This plan is going to put enormous pressure on already strained Big Bazaar signal.

[binand]

Originally Posted by msdivy

Govt can create single window system for managing Bangalore city. That might ease the pain a bit for sometime.

That agency is the BDA. :-)

Originally Posted by K a s h

Has anyone got any update about the new Traffic plan for whitefield area (effective Monday Nov 22, 2014)? Got this on my inbox today!

So this seems to indicate that people coming from Brookefield side cannot reach Vydehi Hospital at all?

[ILTDrive]

Originally Posted by binand

So this seems to indicate that people coming from Brookefield side cannot reach Vydehi Hospital at all?

If I understood the plan, they cannot reach Vydehi through the graphite India signal by taking a right, but have to go to Hoodi Jn and either continue straight to ITPL or take a turn there to come back to Graphite India and then take a left.

[pramodpk]

Originally Posted by binand

That agency is the BDA. :-)



So this seems to indicate that people coming from Brookefield side cannot reach Vydehi Hospital at all?

People coming from Brookefield can take a right turn at Graphite India to go to Vydehi but people coming from Vydehi cannot take a right turn to go towards
K R Puram. They have to take a left at Graphite India junction and take a U turn and come back to Graphite India and go straight.

[reignofchaos]

Don't see the logic of blocking the left turn. Makes no sense.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by reignofchaos

Don't see the logic of blocking the left turn. Makes no sense.

As of now there is wait of around 20 min at red signal at Graphite junction for traffic from Kundanahalli to enter EPIP. 20 min is required for traffic from Hoodi side to go straight or take left towards EPIP & for traffic from EPIP to turn right towards Hoodi. Eliminating this left turn would reduce waiting time from 20 min to 1 or 2 min. This would be the time for traffic from Hoodi towards Kundanahalli.