Rants on Bangalore's traffic situation

[naveenroy]

Raining around Koramangala now - thankfully I'd reached home at 5:30. I am sure there will be major clogging at Silkboard, Madiwala etc.

[daretodream]

Originally Posted by naveenroy

Raining around Koramangala now - thankfully I'd reached home at 5:30. I am sure there will be major clogging at Silkboard, Madiwala etc.

Bingo!

Looking at the maps- I guess it can't get any red... Meet be it should become black!

[kiran_cr]

Heavy traffic between marathalli and sarjapur road on both sides.

[ambivalent_98]

One evening of rains and the potholes open up and all hell break loose. To add to that many temples celebrating putting pandals bang in the middle of the road.
The icing on the cake is pathetic driving and road manners by two wheelers. Nothing against them going fast or overtaking, but playing a game of chicken with oncoming traffic and daring someone to "adjust" when there is no room on the left hand side is really stupid. But seems like the more powerful the motorcycles get the more irresponsible the riders are becoming.
Autorickshaws add to the melee but then being wider than a motorcycle they can't push their luck too much. Bikers play a dangerous game and often too close for comfort. I wish they would realise that they are open and exposed than the guy in the car and probability of serious injury is more for them rather than the 4/6 wheeler whom they are trying to dare. Wearing a helmet does not make them immune to injury and an excuse to drive badly.

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by ambivalent_98

One evening of rains and the potholes open up and all hell break loose.

In my brief visits to Mumbai I've always found most streets lit very brightly, even at odd hours of the night. This greatly enhances road visibility, safety for pedestrians, motorists & animals alike. Even at 1 a.m the roads of uptown Mumbai were full of lights & activity, one would not feel sleepy with such sights. Also driving in rains would be far more safer with good street lighting, this city has problems but power supply isn't one of them and that puts it right on top over others.

On the other hand, here we have Bangalore city, the silicon valley of India, the "Garden City".. one moderate rain and one has to spend half an hour in traffic to travel even 2 kilometres. Powercuts happen well before even a drop of water falls on ground, streetlights are also cut-off and then the adventure begins - between battling the darkness, trying to see through the high-beams of oncoming traffic, switching ones own high-beam on and off to assist other motorists while they may not do the same for you, setting the aircon to cold in an already cold weather just to prevent the windows from fogging up.. its a wild, wild ride. Pitch darkness at 7 p.m in what is supposed to be India's 2nd or 3rd greatest city, 2nd tier village is more like it. Any city which cannot provide power continuously must be instantly stripped of city or town status.

[ambivalent_98]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

Powercuts happen well before even a drop of water falls on ground, streetlights are also cut-off and then the adventure begins - .

Its really a shame to call this the IT capital of India. The city does not reflect India's achievements in IT and ITeS sectors inspite of the hardships the people working in Bangalore face.
Power cuts are everywhere but its probably only in Bangalore where there is no schedule and the power is switched off for 3 hours a day at any time. Street lights are typically non existent. Oh they are there for sure but probably they are too tall for electricity to reach that height.
What angers me the most is the complete lack of awareness of the local administration and the government of the republic of Karnataka. I like this smiley.... the horse is probably the local admin bodies and the poor man beating it is the common people like you and me

[ashwin.terminat]

Some good news. Looks like BBMP is outsourcing maintenance of arterial roads to private bodies.

The roads identified for private management include Old Madras Road, Hosur Road, Bellary Road, Outer Ring Road and others that will have a total distance of 201 kilometres. BBMP, some days back, issued a tender notification to identify consultancies to prepare detailed project reports. Following the report, BBMP will take a call on whether to use a single private agency for the upkeep of all the chosen roads or a single agency for each road.

The vendors' tasks will include — upkeep of carriageways (pothole-filling, repairing cracks, yearly marking of pavement line and humps), biannual marking of zebra crossings, trimming of trees and removal of fallen ones, automated cleaning of roads, traffic sign installation, repair and replacement, graffiti removal, sidewalk displacement grinding, barricade installation, roadside ditch cleaning, removal of flexes, banners and buntings, patrolling of streets during rainstorms, tow-away service, street-light maintenance including minor cable replacements.

Source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com/banga.../49573604.cms?

Further,

More punishments for those who ride/park their vehicles on the pavements of TenderSURE roads!

Perpetrators will have to pay fine in court after the magistrate orders them to do so. The idea behind this is to make people go through the time-consuming process of attending court and paying the fine to get their vehicle/ driving license/RC book released.

Source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com/banga...w/49573828.cms

Such lovely news this morning!

[TheTeacher]

Last evening was a killer commute. I had to drop wifey at the City railway station. Left home at 6 pm and reached at 7:52 pm! Her train was at 8 pm. We were sure she wouldn't make it, but she barely did. Jams everywhere, signals staying red much longer than usual, new signals, flooded ares where cars / 3 / 2 wheelers were too afraid to proceed. 18 km took 2 hours one way and 1:30 on return. I sorely missed having an automatic transmission. Bad roads added to all the other problems.

[ajmat]

Today, Koramangala 80foot road was clogged.

Flipkart have decided to use Volvo buses for their employees and all these buses were parked on 80 foot road thus halving the usable road space.

[binand]

Originally Posted by ajmat

Koramangala 80foot road [...] Flipkart have decided to use Volvo buses for their employees [...]

Whatever happened to their "India's largest lease deal" office in Cessna?

Not that I'm complaining. We could do with some less vehicles in Kadubeesanahalli.

[audioholic]

Pipe laying work on residency road led to cranes taking up half the road near brigade road junction at 6:45AM. Just keep this in mind in case anyone is travelling that side since I am not sure if they would stop or the work will go on all day. It had piled up some traffic early in the morning itself.

[NowNew7]

Originally Posted by ambivalent_98

... seems like the more powerful the motorcycles get the more irresponsible the riders are becoming...

...Wearing a helmet does not make them immune to injury and an excuse to drive badly.

I am not sure the power of the bikes is the reason for irresponsibility. It seems like a cancer which is growing rampant with little understood reasons.

And my dear sir "helmets"? Pray what are those? Are you talking about the right elbow protection, or the fuel tank ornament some people carry?

Full disclosure: I am a bike rider who regularly faces abuse and ridicule for following rules, wearing a helmet and not choosing to play around with my life and limb.

[hifisharu]

BTP posted this a while ago, people please be aware!!!

[sachinpk]

Originally Posted by TheTeacher

Last evening was a killer commute. I had to drop wifey at the City railway station. Left home at 6 pm and reached at 7:52 pm! Her train was at 8 pm.

I understand your pain, as we had once missed our train due to the slow moving traffic . Next day we had to drive down to Kerala starting at 0300Hrs in the morning. Now for a train journey from SBC or BNC, for me it is pretty much that I need to take a half day leave (or work from home- starting early that day and sign off by around 1500Hrs).

Buses are much more easily available and at convenient locations, the lower costs and my love for train travel is the only factors which make me choose trains.

[SR71-Blackbird]

Originally Posted by hifisharu

BTP posted this a while ago, people please be aware!!!

Attachment 1433040

I just experienced this. Traffic was jammed from the bellandur flyover all the way till the top of the iblur flyover when going towards silk board.
The traffic jam in this direction was not due to the rally itself as it was actually under the iblur bridge at that time.
But a lot of idiots decided to stop their cars in the middle of the flyover and got out the cars just to take a peek of what is happening below.
These cars blocked two of the three lanes in the process which caused the jam !

In the opposite direction towards marathalli, traffic was backed up all the way till agara!