Rants on Bangalore's traffic situation

[LoneRidder]

Originally Posted by sachinpk

Is there a public holiday today? Left EC area at 0900Hrs and reached ITPL side by 1010Hrs. Even the infamous Varthur village/town had a very deserted look today. Don't know if the people out there are resting (and gearing up) for some major show in the evening hours.

And there is a Kempegowda Jyothi processing which is coming from the areas which had the towers built by him. So mainly it is from Lalbagh, Ulsoor areas. They all are coming towards BBMP office in the city centre. There could be some traffic jams in the CBD and the route taken by these processions.

The traffic was as normal (packed) on Kundanahalli to ITPL road.

Today is Bengaluru Karaga festival, which is celebrated in and around townhall and other places. There would be lot of traffic restrictions.

[LonelyPlanet]

Ecospace
I have my car standing in office parking last 5 days. Cant bring it home.
Stood on the ramp for 1.5 hours on Friday just to take it down the other ramp and into the same parking slot.
Have walked out of the campus and taken the Volvo home all these days.
What a royal mess.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by LonelyPlanet

Ecospace
I have my car standing in office parking last 5 days. Cant bring it home.
Stood on the ramp for 1.5 hours on Friday just to take it down the other ramp and into the same parking slot.
Have walked out of the campus and taken the Volvo home all these days.
What a royal mess.

Are you serious? Do you mean to say that the entire campus is jammed up? We work in an independent campus so I cannot even imagine something of this sort can happen.

There was some issue yesterday on ORR and when I left office, the route through ORR was showing 48 minutes slower compared to my route through HAL Airport. What was the issue?

[LonelyPlanet]

Originally Posted by audioholic

Are you serious? Do you mean to say that the entire campus is jammed up? We work in an independent campus so I cannot even imagine something of this sort can happen.

There was some issue yesterday on ORR and when I left office, the route through ORR was showing 48 minutes slower compared to my route through HAL Airport. What was the issue?

I am dead serious.
Narrow service land feeds traffic from 4 very big parks (Ecospace/ Ecoworld/Intel/ ETV).
The drains are open up for cleaning and the slabs now obstruct atleast 1 lane.

This creates ripple effect inside the park right down to -2 level in the basement

Just pure apathy and that cant be fixed

I look forward to the first opportunity for bringing the car back and will use the Volvo till sanity prevails.

[balenoed_]

Originally Posted by audioholic

Are you serious? Do you mean to say that the entire campus is jammed up? We work in an independent campus so I cannot even imagine something of this sort can happen.

There was some issue yesterday on ORR and when I left office, the route through ORR was showing 48 minutes slower compared to my route through HAL Airport. What was the issue?

It is quite common for we people who live in Eco Space.

Yesterday, I went to basement, started my car and as about to press the pedal, I see the traffic inside the campus has piled up into the basement and I am literally stuck at where my car was parked. Got down the car, locked it back, walked to the bus stop and reached home in about 30 minutes. If I was in car, it would have taken 1 hour to reach outside eco space and another 30 minutes to take U-Turn and still be at eco space but on opposite side.

[anandtheleo]

Originally Posted by LonelyPlanet

I am dead serious.
Narrow service land feeds traffic from 4 very big parks (Ecospace/ Ecoworld/Intel/ ETV).
The drains are open up for cleaning and the slabs now obstruct atleast 1 lane.

This creates ripple effect inside the park right down to -2 level in the basement

Just pure apathy and that cant be fixed

I look forward to the first opportunity for bringing the car back and will use the Volvo till sanity prevails.

The traffic has been atrocious since last Monday, everything from ORR and service road is jammed at all times, last Friday was the peak.

I just don't understand what is logic in getting more offices into this congested space, don't the powers that be (companies and government) don't understand the royal mess they are creating.

Unless alternative openings for the SEZ's (bending the SEZ rules) are opened this mess is only going to grow.

Btw, since I work out of Pritech SEZ behind Ecospace, the piggyback SEZ's are just

[mpksuhas]

Agree that since past ten days or so, traffic is very bad even with ORR standards. Not sure of the reason, though I guess part of that may be due to ongoing drainage work.

Originally Posted by anandtheleo

I just don't understand what is logic in getting more offices into this congested space, don't the powers that be (companies and government) don't understand the royal mess they are creating

Do check online news articles which were discussing about holding patterns (legal or illegal) for these tech parks especially Embassy tech village. The conflict of interest in restricting the parks can be seen there.

[sachinpk]

Originally Posted by LonelyPlanet

I have my car standing in office parking last 5 days. Cant bring it home.
...
Have walked out of the campus and taken the Volvo home all these days.

Perhaps I should show this post to my wife, who some times complain that we are living very far away from the city .My understanding is that there are also huge apartment blocks in & near ORR. How much trouble would be for them too to get their vehicles out of the apartment gate and then put them for some productive use?

Originally Posted by audioholic

There was some issue yesterday on ORR and when I left office, the route through ORR was showing 48 minutes slower compared to my route through HAL Airport. What was the issue?

There was a truck brakedown near Bellandur/Eco Space.

Originally Posted by anandtheleo

I just don't understand what is logic in getting more offices into this congested space, don't the powers that be (companies and government) don't understand the royal mess they are creating.

In Kerala where rubber plantations are common, there is a term known as "slaughtering". It is the special type of tapping done on rubber trees, soon before their productive lives are coming to an end. Looks like that is what is happening for Bengaluru as well. Every one is now trying to get the maximum out of this city which has been raped for the last 20 years. The main job provider - "IT industry" itself is seeing lots of changes, and it may bring up new operating models which may perhaps allow more distributed working from multiple locations. So try to get the maximum out of big IT parks and real estates, till the boom lasts.

[shatananda.k]

Anybody use Zipgo to commute ?
Our regular driver informed me that multiple TTs have been seized by RTO officials. The reason being that ZIPGO does not have valid permit. I also observed that cabs displayed in the app have reduced.

[sachinpk]

Originally Posted by shatananda.k

Our regular driver informed me that multiple TTs have been seized by RTO officials. The reason being that ZIPGO does not have valid permit. I also observed that cabs displayed in the app have reduced.

They have landed in trouble last year as well. ZipGo's operations are a bit dicey. They do not have the contract carriage licenses (to ply as a tourist bus), nor do they have stage carriage permit (to ply as a local bus).

[mjumrani]

There a dozens of TT's in beaten up condition plying on ring road and police do not have a issue with them. Someone makes it organised and all of a sudden government has a problem.

[drive2eternity]

Recently, I have begun driving again on the horrid Ecospace to ISRO stretch. Below is an elaboration on how many lanes I change during my drive.

I come out of Ecospace and take the service lane. Take a U-Turn and join the ORR. Now, I am in the right most lane.
Change 1 - Just opposite Ecospace, I move to center lane as the right most lane goes towards Ecoworld/Intel.
Continue in the center lane which suddenly becomes right most lane as I take the flyover. Once I come down from the flyover, I am again in the center lane.
Change 2 - As I near the Salapuria Touchstone tech park, I come to the left most lane, to take the service lane exit. I do this to avoid the underpass traffic jam at Kadubeesanahalli underpass. (Just imagine the plight of people who need to take service lanes as the main road is congested. Shouldn't it be the other way round).
Change 3 - Above the Kadubeesanahalli underpass, I move to the right side service lane.
I join the ORR again, in the right most lane.
Changes 4 & 5 - Just before More Mega store, I move to center lane and then the left most lane as the right most and center lanes here get congested due to the ingenious U-turn opened in front of Elite Ford.
Change 6 - Near Park Plaza hotel, I move to the center lane as soon, the left most lane will be blocked by BMTC busses.
Change 7 - Somewhere near Marathalli underpass, I move to the right most lane. I hope I don't need to change lanes anymore and reach ISO junction to take a U-turn.

Now imagine the ideal scenario, where the brilliant 2 sided flyovers/underpasses were replaced by simpler flyovers/underpasses with service lane entry and exits only at the left side. And there was no U-turn bang in the middle of the ORR. I would join the ORR from the left most lane opposite Ecospace. Make 2 changes, come to the right most lane, take the flyovers and underpasses and continue in the same lane till ISRO junction. Wow !

[aroonanand]

Originally Posted by drive2eternity

Recently, I have begun driving again on the horrid Ecospace to ISRO stretch. Below is an elaboration on how many lanes I change during my drive.

Now imagine the ideal scenario, where the brilliant 2 sided flyovers/underpasses were replaced by simpler flyovers/underpasses with service lane entry and exits only at the left side. And there was no U-turn bang in the middle of the ORR. I would join the ORR from the left most lane opposite Ecospace. Make 2 changes, come to the right most lane, take the flyovers and underpasses and continue in the same lane till ISRO junction. Wow !

Well put. I drive from Sarjapur Road to Mahadevapura, near BMP, so I carry out most of the maneouvers that you have outlined, repeating a few of these in the stretch from ISRO to the Mahadevapura flyover ! Like the "kela" awards in the film industry, someone should seriously honor the great minds in BDA / BBMP which thought of this wonderful design of flyovers and messed up the road.

Contrast, look at the elevated roads on Hosur Road (or even the Airport highway from Hebbal), such a clean design with maximum space below the flyover utilized and most service lane exits / entries streamlined (again, some awards or kelas need to be given to the city planners for allowing 2 way traffic in some stretches of the service lanes which causes unwanted jams but a lot fewer choke points compared to ORR)

Oh, i forgot, who in BDA / BBMP really cares about the citizens and traffic. More the flyovers, more project cost and more of "you know what". Let's build more multiple ramps and create further chaos and then float schemes for more "steel" and "diamond" flyovers and "magic boxes" to ease traffic. What a virtuous circle in this city

[hemanth.anand]

Today I noticed that the speed limit on NECE road has been reduced to 80Kmph from 120Kmph. All the boards have been pasted with new 80 stickers over the 120 present earlier.

While 120kmph was high when it was introduced(increased from 80kmph). But after it got a new asphalt layer, it was quite ok to drive at 120kmph I felt. 100Kmph would've been ideal for this road; the new 80Kmph is too slow IMO.

[ashokrajagopal]

I have a serious question to ask the Ecospace guys (I stay near by and work in Kadubesanahalli).
It is obvious it takes about 30 mins from your workdesk to reach the crawling traffic at the gate. There was recently a news article I read where they mentioned EcoWorld is going to expand and match Manyata techpark in terms of footfall.

Whats the plan guys ?