[procrj]

One heavy rain and all roads are choked. Spent the last 30 min managing traffic at Sankey tank signal as trees have blocked the road on both sides when coming from malleswaram 18th cross towards Sankey signal. Sampige road is also blocked at multiple locations and so is the road from malleswaram to Yeshwantpur just after the church.

[drhoneycake]

Originally Posted by binand

Bangalore - metropolitan area 709 km^2, population 87 lakhs.

Bangalore - Metropolitan area - 8005 km^2, population 107 lakhs

Source: bmrda website



Sent from my iPhone 6 using Team-BHP

[binand]

Originally Posted by BeantownThinker

land at the airport at 10.30 am and typically take about an hour and a half to reach from the airport. The first thing they crib about is how long it took to reach from the airport.

Originally Posted by rdst_1

It takes even longer at times to get to the Delhi Airport if you aren't taking the Metro.

You can't be a growing city and also have the major airport within the city; it doesn't happen that way anywhere in the world - sooner or later the airport will be pushed outside of city limits. Unless your destination is in Paddington for example, it can take that long from Heathrow to locations in London (and longer if coming from Gatwick). I'm sort of glad that Bangalore got there long before Mumbai. The new airport in Mumbai is coming up near Panvel and I can bet it will take upwards of 2 hours to get to BKC or Nariman Point from there for most people.

I nowadays need to go to Udyog Vihar in Gurgaon; which is about 12 km from the airport. The usual time for me is 45 minutes, but once it took me 1.5 hours (the other way). Delhi is no better than Bangalore.

Originally Posted by landcruiser123

Bangalore as a city has not been developed by the British, Mysore was the major city then.

Don't think (at least from photographs I've seen) Bangalore was very different from Chennai. In fact even today Chennai has some very narrow arterial roads (ECR between Thiruvanmiyur and Neelangarai, or RK Mutt Road, or Nungambakkam High Road) and terrible traffic jams.

Also I think Bangalore was the administrative capital of Mysore since 1835 or thereabouts; so it is unlikely that British focus was on Mysore and not Bangalore.

The thing that differentiates Bangalore from other cities I have lived in is the singular focus on fantastic projects like elevated roads and underground tunnels. Steel flyovers and now, pod taxis. Elsewhere in the country they focus on strengthening things like rail & bus networks. In Bangalore nobody except a few members of the public are pushing for suburban rail.

[nileshch]

Originally Posted by binand

I'm sort of glad that Bangalore got there long before Mumbai. The new airport in Mumbai is coming up near Panvel and I can bet it will take upwards of 2 hours to get to BKC or Nariman Point from there for most people.

It will be hopefully faster as they are also planning the trans harbour link. It will connect Sewri to Navi Mumbai and will be a good shortcut to the new airport.

In Bangalore, in spite of multiple transport options leading to the airport, the government is simply not doing any thing about it. They could have solved the airport road issue right when the airport came up. But that was not to be.

[TorqueyTechie]

Saw news about BBMP planning to reintroduce pay and park in 85 roads of Bengaluru. There would be three categories with A being for Premium Street Parking, B for Normal Street Parking and C for merely Street Parking. The pay and park scheme had been stopped owing to parking mafia but now BBMP plans to maintain this themselves for 10 years.



Ok lets lighten this thread up a bit! Bengaluru city police are using references of famous TV shows/characters on twitter to highlight traffic/crime issues. Some of them are hilarious. I bet many would have seen it (or posted here as well). BBC has recently come up with an article on it. Sharing few of the pics here.

1. BTP stressing the importance of skywalk.(GOT Reference)



2. Requesting people to pay the traffic violations (GOT Reference)



3. Mentioning the importance of wearing helmets. (Star wars reference, Jedi no less)



4. Mentioning that Bangalore is a no drug zone.



Response of netflix for the above pic and the subsequent response from Bangalore police.



6. Tweet against drunken driving. (GOT Reference)



Source : BBC

[sachinpk]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata (the original four) had the luxury of time, most of them started their growth and development during the colonial era whilst Bangalore was just a colonial outpost, an army center & a relaxation spot so to speak

Mumbai & Chennai were also capital cities of the respective Presidencies (Bombay and Madras), so they did have some advantages. Also I feel that cities like Mumbai had a suburban railway system from ages, and the city actually extended Northwards and North East wards just following the railway line. Their public transport system also had good planning between the bus fleet & railway trains. And it was also a case that in those cities people (due to income limitations) also found it more convenient to use public transport. Bangalore all the while has been just a military cantonment. And when the city bloomed because of the IT boom, it had lots of people with lots of disposable income. So naturally demands for huge flats, cars etc. were more, and the city-fathers also found this as a neat way to make more money (by being realtors themselves or through property tax etc.).

Originally Posted by landcruiser123

Bangalore as a city has not been developed by the British, Mysore was the major city then.

Humbly disagree. Off course it would be like old kings like Kempe Gowda who found the city and had the four towers placed etc., but even since Tippu was driven out of his fort in the city market area, Bangalore has been mainly a "military cantonment" town. The British Army made a strong base here, while they also allowed the Wodeyars to run the kingdom sitting in Mysore. The main city areas like M.G Road (East Parade), Cubbon Park, Attarah Kacheri (18 courts), Sankey Tank were all built by them. Even today, Bangalore has the highest number of "regimental centres". Bangalore Cantonment had its railway station (broad guage line) much before today's Bangalore city station. Reason, being the Brits wanted a railway station near there place (and not from Mysore) to quickly move to the Presidency capital, Madras. It was the Mysore Maharajah who later built the city station, with a metre guage line starting from Mysore going all the way to Yeshwantpur and to the Mysore state's interiors.

Originally Posted by binand

The thing that differentiates Bangalore from other cities I have lived in is the singular focus on fantastic projects like elevated roads and underground tunnels. Steel flyovers and now, pod taxis.

I take the above as sarcasm []. And I have also been trying to figure out when did the troubles of Bangalore actually start. This was a city with an excellent weather, and also having lots of industries once upon a time. They had BEL, HAL, ITI and many other establishments neatly working from here. Electronics City was developed in the 1970s. The city had its zoo at Bannerghatta - which is much more than a zoo - way back in 1960s. So during those days, the political class did seem to have good vision for the future. The rot seems to have started perhaps in the early 1990s, and the IT boom allowed the rot to set in quite fast.

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

Bangalore was just a colonial outpost...

Originally Posted by binand

Bangalore - metropolitan area 709 km^2, population 87 lakhs.

Originally Posted by landcruiser123

Bangalore as a city has not been developed by the British, Mysore was the major city then.

Originally Posted by drhoneycake

Bangalore - Metropolitan area - 8005 km^2, population 107 lakhs

Originally Posted by nileshch

In Bangalore, in spite of multiple transport options...

Originally Posted by sachinpk

Bangalore all the while has been just a military cantonment.

Glad to see the discussion. Wish the men in the ivory towers take a leaf out of this, brainstorm and come up with holistic solutions instead of relying on knee jerk reactions.

For those of you interested in looking at the genesis of Bengaluru, a series called Bengaluru-Namma Ooru, being telecast on Janshri News is a good watch. Though full episodes aren't available on YouTube, small snippets are. A sample:

https://youtu.be/sCSr3ebWK2E

[BeantownThinker]

Originally Posted by sachinpk

And I have also been trying to figure out when did the troubles of Bangalore actually start.

Hope this gives an indication as to when Bangalore's troubles actually started. Given this growth, must say Hyderabad has done reasonably well when it comes to civic infra.

[binand]

Originally Posted by BeantownThinker

Hope this gives an indication as to when Bangalore's troubles actually started. Given this growth, must say Hyderabad has done reasonably well when it comes to civic infra.

Note that this is not the whole story, because Bangalore became Bruhat Bangalore in between those two censuses, subsuming many municipalities and villages around the original Bangalore. Therefore, those population figures are for two different geographic areas.

[TorqueyTechie]

Slow moving traffic from jakkasandra towards Sarjapur/Bellandur. Has taken me 15 mins to cross 100m. Please watch out if you are travelling along this stretch.

[n.devdath]

Originally Posted by sachinpk

This was a city with an excellent weather, and also having lots of industries once upon a time. They had BEL, HAL, ITI and many other establishments neatly working from here. Electronics City was developed in the 1970s. The city had its zoo at Bannerghatta - which is much more than a zoo - way back in 1960s. So during those days, the political class did seem to have good vision for the future. The rot seems to have started perhaps in the early 1990s, and the IT boom allowed the rot to set in quite fast.

Most of the erstwhile PSUs and large industries had the sense to construct townships so that commute was minimal and employees could reach office and home on time. The single largest drawback of these gargantuan IT parks is that while they house hundreds of thousands of employees, NONE of them were asked to construct housing facilities close to them.

Also, corruption ensured that a hundred acre IT Park was approved facing a 60' road.

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by n.devdath

Most of the erstwhile PSUs and large industries had the sense to construct townships so that commute was minimal and employees could reach office and home on time. The single largest drawback of these gargantuan IT parks is that while they house hundreds of thousands of employees, NONE of them were asked to construct housing facilities close to them.

Also, corruption ensured that a hundred acre IT Park was approved facing a 60' road.

Agree about the PSUs. But it was during early days only and land availability was easy since they were formed on the outskirts. BEML created layout on Mysuru road (RR Nagar) which is far away from their plant (in addition to one layout near to plant).

The problem is that private sector operates only on profit and greed. Expecting them to be considerate to all these issues is moot.

[TorqueyTechie]

Originally Posted by n.devdath

Most of the erstwhile PSUs and large industries had the sense to construct townships so that commute was minimal and employees could reach office and home on time. The single largest drawback of these gargantuan IT parks is that while they house hundreds of thousands of employees, NONE of them were asked to construct housing facilities close to them.

While I do agree that the PSU's had the forethought to construct the townships, it should also be known that the number of houses would be limited given that the number of jobs(and hence people) were mostly fixed and not varying much. You cannot equate that to the IT scenario where the number of people coming in cannot be predicted.

And also some of the issues that is arising is also due to the fact that number of PG's, apartments have sprung up close to the IT parks congesting the already crowded narrow lanes. Take whitefield for example. There are so many companies there but to get out of that area and to travel towards bellandur/HSR one has to traverse through some narrow lanes and get onto the main road. Add the traffic of the apartments/PG's and you get to see the mess that it is today. This is just one example. All the places where there are employment opportunities the case is the same. Check out the factory hub on the west side of the city, Peenya. There too the mess is the same.

Bangalore did not have the capability to become such a big city. What the city needed was a planned IT belt and proper transport services (read metro + BMTC) implemented before projecting itself for the investors. But alas! Now I believe its too late and nothing much can be done.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by srishiva

Agree about the PSUs. But it was during early days only and land availability was easy since they were formed on the outskirts. BEML created layout on Mysuru road (RR Nagar) which is far away from their plant (in addition to one layout near to plant).
.

Speaking about these layouts, they are different from the employee quarters and such. For example, most of the defense/ISRO colony is located in the HAL/Domlur area including the employee quarters. However, the residential layouts are created by societies within the organization which is basically to enable employees to create a home for themselves once they retire. Such is the case with ISRO Layout in South Bangalore. Same with RR Nagar BEML Layout also. Of course, some active employees also stay in these layouts, but thats by choice. But the creation of these layouts are not made based on proximity to office. There are such layouts even in the outskirts of the city and beyond, such as Kengeri, Chikkaballapur road, KIAL Road etc.

On a different note, these layouts are well planned and executed. Most importantly, they are well integrated with the rest of the city in terms of roads, utilities and not like a gated community with one entry and one exit. Most of the IT Corridor does not follow this. Nor does the Tom, Dick and Harry layouts that exists in areas like KR Puram, Whitefield and other places along the ORR. Apart from one road that branches into smaller roads into these layouts, there is no connectivity. One look in Google maps shows how the trunk roads and branch roads are done up in these places.

The traffic issues in such poorly planned areas will exist, and will definitely become worse, if not stay like the same. Projects like the metro will ease traffic on trunk roads, and people will have to find their own ways for last mile connectivity. If anyway they use some sort of vehicle to come to a trunk road where metro is, that too with difficulty due to narrow streets, why would they not continue on a relatively free trunk road just to the end of the metro line, and then continue driving to their destination?

That is exactly my current situation. I cant get to work by metro due to a screwed up last mile connectivity from the metro station to my office. Until metro has a station just less than a km from my workplace, I find no benefit taking it in the current stage.

[Notyetgrey]

I see a disabled gentleman with a Activa kind of vehicle trying to flag down two wheeler riders near the Bellandur underpass (the service road that leads to Ecospace from the Bellandur Central junction). Wasn't there a post shared by someone earlier about the same guy trying to con folks somewhere else in ORR before? Something about this guy and his MO seems vaguely familiar.