[sachinpk]

Originally Posted by Nempuguru

Tunnel road project by American company was briefed to media yesterday by Bangalore incharge minister. He even told no govt officers (read BBMP) taking his words seriously about infra/road repair works. Then, how can people take his words about tunnel road project seriously?

No wonder BBMP people also do not take him seriously. Come on sir, we know how tunnelling work in Metro is progressing. BBMP folks are also not dumbos. They also know the problems. And after knowing all that one individual (that too a Minister) comes up and says he is planning to build roads underground, what kind of respect he would ever get?

[sunishsamuel]

Few thoughts:

1) I would suggest it is high time to encourage companies like Ola and ZipGo to launch bus services and have them stabilize. BMTC cannot handle everything for various reasons. Subsidize services on not profitable routes, stagger them based on demand/availability than rigid time tables. Should be available 24x7

2) Once the above is done, all companies, government offices to levy heavy parking fees for cars --- each parking to cost let's say Rs. 10,000 per month. This would discourage many to take cars to office and rather prefer option 1. No discrimination. Whether the citizen is working in pvt sector or govt. sector, use the public transport facility.

3) Enforce rules strictly - if footpaths are not there or if encroached, take strict action. No parking on the roads, by lanes - the road in front of my gate is not my parking space !

4) Resurface roads, this time to also cover the service roads, the bits that they leave open regularly and ensure dust free environment. Provide well lit walking areas, ramps, Foot over bridges were necessary. I am pretty sure we do not prefer walking because its dusty all around !

5) Ban auto rickshaws - work out a deal to train and help the auto drivers to get cabs and tag them with Uber/Ola - provide incentives for this move.

6) Strict ban on approvals to commercial complexes that do not provide adequate parking - need to come up with a formula so that the number of parkings vs sq.ft can be determined - also based on the type of building/customer profiles.

7) New construction activity allowed only if certain conditions are fulfilled - open area/parking space for residents & visitors, clear exit and entry ramps etc. Stop giving permissions to big buildings on a 1000 sqft land.

8) From 2016, new tech parks to come up only in areas like Mandya, hubli and so on. Its going to be painful in the start but will give better benefits in future.

[mav2000]

Just a small rant from my side. Yesterday near Bangalore Golf Course (Near CM's Home/Office) the road towards Sankey road was chockoblock. The other way towards Shivananda Circle was free. This is the usual story since they built the silly roundabout at Windsor Manor Circle.

But more importantly, every single car which was on the wrong side of the road was a taxi or public vehicle or bike. Most of the other cars were in their lane, but every single car in the opposite lane was a taxi or minivan of some type. I am really tired with the way the brutish driving of taxis on our roads. They dont seem to care about any rules whatsoever. Is it not time to implement some sort of limit on the number of commercial vehicle registrations in the city?

[createrkid]

Friend just called me and informed me of an Omni burning at the arekere signal on Bannerghatta. He says the Omni spontaneously caught fire. Traffic may be back to normal now. Caution advised.

[Rajeevraj]

Lorry breakdown on belandur flyover towards silkboard. Has caused a significant pile up. Took me 50 min from kadubeesanahalli underpass to ecospace 4.40 to 5.30. Expect the backlog to have worsened significantly now. Traffic police doing a strange thing. At the start of belandur flyover they are blocking the outer 2 lanes and then letting the other 2 through and vice versa. I think that approach has made it worse.

[karts]

Originally Posted by sunishsamuel

2) Once the above is done, all companies, government offices to levy heavy parking fees for cars --- each parking to cost let's say Rs. 10,000 per month. This would discourage many to take cars to office and rather prefer option 1. No discrimination. Whether the citizen is working in pvt sector or govt. sector, use the public transport facility.

Not targeting you, Just taking your point as a reference, I see lot of members suggesting to use public transport, car pooling etc. Why should we use public transport/Car pool? We bought our cars so that we can travel to & fro to office or anywhere at our own convenience and at most comfort. We have already paid a hefty road tax which is a tax collected for usage of roads. Just because the government is not competent enough to maintain good roads and provide proper infrastructure, it is unfair to expect us to to find alternate mode of transport which is not great either. Car pool/public transport can be used if we want to save money from a personal perspective, not to reduce the load on the government's duties.

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

Lorry breakdown on belandur flyover towards silkboard. Has caused a significant pile up. Took me 50 min from kadubeesanahalli underpass to ecospace 4.40 to 5.30. Expect the backlog to have worsened significantly now. Traffic police doing a strange thing. At the start of belandur flyover they are blocking the outer 2 lanes and then letting the other 2 through and vice versa. I think that approach has made it worse.

After reading your post, just checked Google maps, its thick maroon red all the way from EMC2 till ecospace . Wonder how much time its going to take for me to get out of Ecospace (I work in 6B) , was planning a early leave today. Will have to stay back

[sunishsamuel]

Originally Posted by karts

Not targeting you, Just taking your point as a reference, I see lot of members suggesting to use public transport, car pooling etc. Why should we use public transport/Car pool? We bought our cars so that we can travel to & fro to office or anywhere at our own convenience and at most comfort. We have already paid a hefty road tax which is a tax collected for usage of roads. Just because the government is not competent enough to maintain good roads and provide proper infrastructure, it is unfair to expect us to to find alternate mode of transport which is not great either. Car pool/public transport can be used if we want to save money from a personal perspective, not to reduce the load on the government's duties.

Agree on the taxes. However, i have a thought to ponder on. Even i feel bad that the taxes are not put to right use, but on second thought, are the taxes collected enough to build roads per today's standards ?

The total vehicles in bangalore (as of july 2014 data) is around 50L. Source Bangalore mirror (http://www.bangaloremirror.com/banga...w/45015765.cms)

Let's say the ideal situation where taxes are collected as follows:

1) 35L two wheelers would give Rs. 350 crore tax collection (average 10k per two wheeler)
2) 10L cars would give Rs. 900 crore tax collection. (average 90k per car)

Would this be enough to get better roads in Bangalore ? I think may not be, considering the current market rate for building roads, acquiring land etc. Experts, please correct me. This is a guesstimate, so pardon inaccuracy.

Also to note, the above figure is the overall number of cars, and the taxes collected over a period of time not in one shot (as vehicles registerd in multiple years). So that in case, the actual tax collected for the number of vehicles could be much lower. So funds would be a concern unless government figures out other means of road development viz: toll roads, exchange of development rights for the amount of roads built by the developer and so on.

Reiterating, we ultimately suffer with the jams due to inefficiency, bad usage of funds etc. However, car pooling/public transport would help in reducing the congestion while going to office and back. I've been using uber/ola or car pool, i found that a good option (not that its so beautiful experience but still better than getting stuck in traffic and road rage etc.) I will buy a car eventually but would use that for my highway drives than city. Or when i have some big shopping. Its been months since we even went out shopping large scale (thanks to amazon, big basket, jabong). I do not expect everyone to think like me though,

I think developed countries have a similar model, use private vehicles for going out on weekends/long trips etc and public transport to the city/job etc.

That said, all arguments are valid (on car pooling/public transport) only when the facilities are in place.

[ashwin.terminat]

Originally Posted by sunishsamuel

The total vehicles in bangalore (as of july 2014 data) is around 50L. Source Bangalore mirror (http://www.bangaloremirror.com/banga...w/45015765.cms)

Let's say the ideal situation where taxes are collected as follows:

1) 35L two wheelers would give Rs. 350 crore tax collection (average 10k per two wheeler)
2) 10L cars would give Rs. 900 crore tax collection. (average 90k per car)

Would this be enough to get better roads in Bangalore ?

Not saying anything about your suggestions.

But, Road Taxes go straight to the RTO. The RTO does not build our roads.

BBMP does. BBMP had collected Rs. 1800 crore in Property Taxes alone last year. They also get revenue from various advertisements they place along the roads.

In essence, Whitefield alone generates Rs. 26,000 crore in revenue.

Are we still going to say the money is not enough? I think not.

[sunishsamuel]

Originally Posted by ashwin.terminat

Not saying anything about your suggestions.

But, Road Taxes go straight to the RTO. The RTO does not build our roads.

BBMP does. BBMP had collected Rs. 1800 crore in Property Taxes alone last year. They also get revenue from various advertisements they place along the roads.

In essence, Whitefield alone generates Rs. 26,000 crore in revenue.

Are we still going to say the money is not enough? I think not.

Wow, that's a huge money then. I raised the tax point in reference to the road tax part raised by member karts. RTO collects the taxes but it would go to the government and gets allocated correctly, isnt it ?

26k crore is a huge amount but i guess that getting allocated to all areas of Bangalore might be causing this crunch ? Or now back to the topic of mismanagement ?

However, I think the tax figures might be lesser if i read

http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/re...rridor-1964525

And BBMP is expecting to raise the taxes as of 2014 report. I am just assuming since i do not have the accurate data from government. Your point could be true considering the number of properties and tax collected from the whitefield area.

[karts]

Originally Posted by sunishsamuel

Agree on the taxes. However, i have a thought to ponder on. Even i feel bad that the taxes are not put to right use, but on second thought, are the taxes collected enough to build roads per today's standards ?

Originally Posted by ashwin.terminat

Are we still going to say the money is not enough? I think not.

Agreed to the points, but why is there a need to relay roads again and again within a month's time?

Few examples which I know of,

-The road just after BEML Layout towards graphite india & at Kundanahalli signal has been re-laid twice in the last 4 months. The work is still not upto the mark.
-The kadubeesanahalli underpass has been relaid twice.
-The exit point to ORR for vehicles coming from Kundanahalli on the marathalli bridge was re-laid 2 months back and now its even worse than it was before.

All above are just my observations, there may be several other places facing similar scenario. Obviously BBMP would have given the contract to someone hoping the actual cost involved to have the patch work last for atleast 1 year, but that is not the case here. So, everytime money is being paid for Quality roads, but the actual implementation does not have the desired quality. And they again get paid by BBMP for repairing the same. This is simple waste of money or BBMP has so much money at disposal that they can spend on repairing same roads again and again.

[raghuram.cg]

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

Lorry breakdown on belandur flyover towards silkboard. Has caused a significant pile up. Took me 50 min from kadubeesanahalli underpass to ecospace 4.40 to 5.30. Expect the backlog to have worsened significantly now. Traffic police doing a strange thing. At the start of belandur flyover they are blocking the outer 2 lanes and then letting the other 2 through and vice versa. I think that approach has made it worse.

At 6pm - the traffic had piled up all the way upto Mahadevpura flyover. Folks going towards Silk Board from KR Puram side - beware! and try to take alternative routes

raghu

[vinjosep]

Originally Posted by NPV

.. Tunneled roads for Bangalore as as possible solution ...."

IF implemented properly, than it is the best solution. If the existing roads in Bangalore have to be expanded, then there are only two options - either skywards or underneath! Most of the roads in Bangalore have no real estate available beside them to expand and add more lanes.

But then we all know, I guess, how infra projects in India end up. Sigh!

Originally Posted by sunishsamuel

Few thoughts:....

Quite a few good ideas there.

1) I however do not think that OLA or for that matter any private firm would have the best interests of the common man in mind if given a free hand. All that will happen is the govt. backed transport system will wither and die.

2) Have a reliable public transport system and automatically people would prefer it over cars. Mumbai and Delhi are examples i hear quoted often as examples. Currently, can anyone rely on BMTC to get to an interview on the other side of Bangalore even if he/ she starts a few hours in advance? No.


My personal view is that the current roads could still manage the existing traffic had there been a proper driving discipline imbibed in the drivers on the road.

I recently met on the road an apparently educated person who was squeezing in through a small gap from the wrong side in an otherwise disciplined traffic. When confronted about his actions, his response verbatim in English, "You seem to be new to Bangalore. This is how it is here. You squeeze into any gap you get. Rules be ***".

[binand]

Originally Posted by sunishsamuel

7) New construction activity allowed only if certain conditions are fulfilled - open area/parking space for residents & visitors, clear exit and entry ramps etc. Stop giving permissions to big buildings on a 1000 sqft land.

Just singling this out - all these things are already present in BBMP's rulebook. Also, your other suggestions are quite utopian - things like banning autos, Rs. 10K parking fee etc. will be litigated out of existence.

Originally Posted by mav2000

Is it not time to implement some sort of limit on the number of commercial vehicle registrations in the city?

This will only lead to people getting their vehicles registered outside Bangalore and bringing them into city. No point in doing this.

Originally Posted by karts

Car pool/public transport can be used if we want to save money from a personal perspective, not to reduce the load on the government's duties.

Oh no. The government can and should implement serious disincentives for private vehicle usage. But without (a) having functional and comfortable public transport, and (b) applying this rule to sundry politicians and officials it will be a failure too.

Originally Posted by ashwin.terminat

But, Road Taxes go straight to the RTO. The RTO does not build our roads.

Road tax goes to the government, who aggregates revenue from all sources and then allocates chunks of it to various departments etc. in a budgeting exercise once a year. There is no given that all road tax money will be used in a certain way.

Originally Posted by ashwin.terminat

BBMP does. BBMP had collected Rs. 1800 crore in Property Taxes alone last year. They also get revenue from various advertisements they place along the roads.

In essence, Whitefield alone generates Rs. 26,000 crore in revenue.

These prompted me to look up this information. Check this document (bottom entry of page 11):

http://bbmp.gov.in/documents/10180/4...9-54e6d2c486b9

(This, and its companion document:

http://bbmp.gov.in/documents/10180/4...f-23edbde074eb

make some interesting reading)

You can see total property tax they collected in 2014-15: Rs. 783 crore - after projecting it to be Rs. 2135 crore. So for 2015-16 they have projected Rs. 1900 crore; we can then expect actual collection of maybe Rs. 500-600 crore. Such is their efficiency in collecting property tax.

This article calls it like it is - a pie in the sky: http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/a...ysis-bangalore

[WindRide]

Originally Posted by karts

... We bought our cars so that we can travel to & fro to office or anywhere at our own convenience and at most comfort...

No offence, but most European countries think otherwise.

Now imagine -
Govt builds a wide,smooth 4-laned road connecting your home to office. You buy a car and drive it to office at an avg speed of 50kmph along with 10 other cars (remember less people have cars at this point). You rev to max and enjoy the engine note.

100 other people see your comfortable drive (while they hang out of buses or get drenched in rains on their two wheelers) and decide to buy cars to enjoy similar comforts.

In a month, there are 110 cars on the same stretch. Your average speed drops to around 35kmph now. Suddenly FM chatter sounds interesting.

200 more people buy cars (great for the economy, after all the auto industry growth is linked to national economic prosperity right?) Next month, you are sharing the same stretch with 310 cars and now crawling at around 10kmph. Teeth grinding is a habit by now and your sporty car starts resembling a white elephant in the parking lot.

Vehicle density has grown exponentially. Road breaks down. Potholes and patches have replaced the smooth tarmac. Car owners rant on forums/social media/around dinner table.

Who is at fault?

Govt's? They built you a good road to begin with, something that was built (and could be maintained) to handle a certain vehicle density/load.
Your's? Its your right to buy and drive a car after all, no?
Road's? Any road can only take so much abuse, and you surely can't widen roads/flyovers at will.

In my books, the blame is squarely on an abnormal increase in affluent human population within a relatively small land mass. Decongestion due to well thought-out Govt initiatives is the only long term sustainable solution.

[sunishsamuel]

Originally Posted by binand

Just singling this out - all these things are already present in BBMP's rulebook. Also, your other suggestions are quite utopian - things like banning autos, Rs. 10K parking fee etc. will be litigated out of existence.

I am just suggesting them as options, however, there do exist few companies that has a parking fee per hour/month and encourages using the office transport (vans that pick up from a center point etc.) So that's not a bad idea. I work for such a company and we do not face traffic jam issues in front of our office or the vicinity. However, we do have good shuttle services to take care of pick up and drops. Could be adopted in multiple organizations to avoid grid locks on roads !

A few cities do implement ban on auto rickshaws on few areas/limits. Could think of making that ban a wider one and as said by providing them with very cheap and affordable options to upgrade to a car, incentives etc. not by killing their livelihood. The reason being safer, comfortable and efficient commute for everyone. Also helps them psychologically adopt to better driving standards ! I just feel so, i dont have data to back that.

None of the above is intended to solve the lack of public transport, general inefficiency, mismanagement of the government, corporations, indiscipline among the drivers. However, provides relief for the problems that we are seeing currently. Use our voting rights to make sure we chose the right representative so that future is at least taken care of.

Originally Posted by vinjosep

IF implemented properly, than it is the best solution. If the existing roads in Bangalore have to be expanded, then there are only two options - either skywards or underneath! Most of the roads in Bangalore have no real estate available beside them to expand and add more lanes.

Very true.

Originally Posted by WindRide

In my books, the blame is squarely on an abnormal increase in affluent human population within a relatively small land mass. Decongestion due to well thought-out Govt initiatives is the only long term sustainable solution.

Unfortunately, spreading the city and decongestion is not favored by all, no one is thinking of long term impacts. We have been discussing this option in this thread but not moving ahead. more tech parks are still coming up in the already congested areas.