[motorworks]

Got stuck in this mess for a good 5 hours yesterday! Like everyday, I started from my home adjacent to Phoenix mall, to my office at Sarjapur Outer ring road Junction. Whats usually an hour drive turned out to be 5 hours! Can you believe this? And in the outer ring road, taking a U turn is not easy too. I had to go to my office for some important work and hence the option to turn back was ruled out.

We were stranded on the flyover just before this water logged area. Some taxi drivers even started handing out parle-g biscuits saying that this is not going to get over soon. To make it worse, i was in my wife’s elite i20, i had just sold my Creta one day before! I parked my car on the flyover, took a walk and then assessed the situation. Vehicles were taking the lane extreme right and moving on. The risk was lower for buses and SUVs. But when i saw a swift do this journey, i thought i will take my risk. There was no point standing on the flyover for hours. So took my car and stayed on the extreme right and just hoped that i dont ruin my wife’s as good as new elite i20 ( just 6000kms on the ODO).

I did cross over, but not without a few jittery moments, especially when a water tanker overtook me on this flooded stretch, pushing more water to my side! Overall 5 hours wasted! I reached office by 1pm, lost all interest in any work that i had and left by 6pm, preparing myself for another nightmare! But surprise, surprise! I managed to get back in 35 minutes! I guess most folks stayed away from this road in the 2nd half of the day!

[Haroon]

Originally Posted by balenoed_

Bellandur ORR back to it’s glorious past. This flooding problem infront of eco space is never fixed, after so many years. They got the whole 2 years with empty roads to fix this problem, but nothing done. All constructions around, but least bothered about fixing basic issues. What a collosal disaster we have to live with.

Attachment 2352470

Beware of coming this side, the map shows bloody red.

Today's image.

To most of us this picture signifies bad planning, our travel woes and pretty much whats wrong with the way our tax money is spent....
WHEREAS, to a few who can make the change, this is a BRILLIANT opportunity to yet again make some more money for a project that will be touted as 'solving all the problems' but must barely suffice till the next elections because a sizeable percentage of that money doesnt actually go to the consultants, concrete or steel...... And believe me, these projects will also have further 'cost escalations'!

[mayukh42]

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

Ideally the overflow should go into Belandur Lake, but the drain that actually goes under ORR is blocked and encroached. On top of that Bellandur Lake is also full. So water coming from Saul Kere has nowhere to go other than on the ORR.

The Bellandur Lake has also shrunk a lot in last 10 years - I remember a post comparing Google satellite images and it is shockingly smaller, all due to unabated constructions around it. Along with the clogging of storm water drains to it, is one of the reasons the largest lake of the city (once) is unable to help us now.

Almost all leading construction firms have broken the eco balance in that area just for greed. But hey, they care for the environment, so they name the projects with Eco.

[JithinR]

I am also seeing a more recent trend of even educated individuals on twitter blaming people working in the city for all this trouble. Even I would agree that unplanned expansion without considering basic amenities/geography is responsible in part for all the trouble we face.

But there seems to be a shift from amongst the native population to shift blame exclusively onto people coming into Bengaluru without considering all the damage that local contractors, politicians have wrought on this city.

At this point, the mood seems to read more like, "Yes, I don't care if you think the city has bad infrastructure. Just leave and don't come back".

Why is this a problem? Well, I guess the powers that be will soon utilize this sentiment to label the population as a cause of all the trouble and wash their hands of the fixing infrastructure woes.

[ThatCarGuy]

On top of all this when the roads are cordoned off for metro work (the complete ORR stretch until Hebbal), especially for the IT crowd who works in SEZs, the new SEZ rules are being mandated and companies are now forcing their workforce to come back to the office

https://www.ndtv.com/business/comm-m...-units-3249649

petrol rates, potholes, traffic, waterlogging, metro construction...its so depressing!

[mayukh42]

Originally Posted by JithinR

I am also seeing a more recent trend of even educated individuals on twitter blaming people working in the city for all this trouble. ... there seems to be a shift from amongst the native population to shift blame exclusively onto people coming into Bengaluru

Well, that is politics 101 international edition. Blame outsiders for all mess. It happens not just here, but everywhere including America.

As you rightly said, all politicians and builders profiting from this mess are localites. Bengaluru "was" a city of lakes and gardens. Today it is a city whose traffic woes thread runs into 20k replies, more than 5 times the next largest similar thread.

Anybody putting blame on "outsiders" is just trying to shift the focus and responsibility. For what it is worth, even localites work in these corridors and they too suffer in the jams.

Having said that, and as somebody who now calls Bengaluru his "home" after staying here for 14 years, I can say that this city is far more friendly to outsiders than some other cities where knowing the local language would be a must (though I think anybody staying here for long term should learn it, extends from Sanskrit so basically a sibling of several languages).

I want this city to grow in a sustainable way, of course more than me it is the local landowners who will profit. I hope the satellite townships and peripheral ring road is done properly and fixes the mess for good.

[ambandla]

Originally Posted by JithinR

I am also seeing a more recent trend of even educated individuals on twitter blaming people working in the city for all this trouble. Even I would agree that unplanned expansion without considering basic amenities/geography is responsible in part for all the trouble we face.

But there seems to be a shift from amongst the native population to shift blame exclusively onto people coming into Bengaluru without considering all the damage that local contractors, politicians have wrought on this city.

At this point, the mood seems to read more like, "Yes, I don't care if you think the city has bad infrastructure. Just leave and don't come back".

Why is this a problem? Well, I guess the powers that be will soon utilize this sentiment to label the population as a cause of all the trouble and wash their hands of the fixing infrastructure woes.

I have seen the same people who would blame so called 'outsiders' for ruining the city. The same people who take 1 year rental advance and make 'outsiders' pay ridiculous amount of rent. The same people got so tense and worried when all 'outsiders' vacated and left during corona crisis. Irony!!!!

[AltoLXI]

Bring back the sea planes at Bellanduru lake - metro can wait

[cool_dube]

Having stayed in Bangalore for 23 years now, and having seen the downward trajectory of the "living quotient" of this once-lovely city over these many years - thanks to rampant & utterly unplanned growth (yes, I've deliberately skipped the word 'development' here) - I am very sad to say that the state of affairs when it comes to infrastructure, is beyond the slightest hope of any recovery or turnaround. Eventually, people will start relocating to their respective natives, realising the futility of life under such conditions - the trend is already catching on and will only go up! Having spent as many years in Bangalore, it deeply saddens me to see the current state of this beautiful city - sad but true.

[animeshc]

Originally Posted by animeshc

I left today morning at 7 for the Blr-Coimbatore leg of my roadtrip (Hyd - Coonoor) and almost 6 hours later checked in to Mariott near Bellandur . I think this is exactly where we were stuck, hidden behind the tree on the right(one occasion where I would not have minded getting clicked on the traffic cams but got hidden, alas it has been that kinda day). Saw a couple of BMWs and multiple two wheelers getting stuck in the water which still doesn't look like receding. Apart from a few volunteers trying to help manage the traffic, no help from the authorities, most of them were busy clicking pictures and egging people on to try and go through the water.
Now considering taking a flight to coimbatore instead.

Water ahead
Attachment 2352531

Traffic behind
Attachment 2352532

Finally took a cab back home after leaving the car at Mariott (an arrival eta of 10 mins ended up being 80 mins, will be eternally grateful to the cab driver who didn't cancel the booking). Had woken up at 5 excited for a lovely day of drive and returned back 12 hours later battered, bruised and eternally traumatized. A couple of videos we took from the cab:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eIYCS1dHaac?feature=share

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TG8UQIJgfDc?feature=share

[raghukodali]

Me and my wife got stuck in this Bellandur river yesterday evening. It took 3 hours to cover a distance of 7 km in my Innova. Finally reached the river and crossed it with the help and guidance of some volunteers (cab drivers etc). There was no semblance of a road and there were no traffic policemen, no BBMP officials. The whole area was left to fend for itself. Pathetic situation.

[JediKnight]

Having worked in this area close to a decade, brings back painful memories. How many hours of my prime time life wasted in this miserable traffic. What saddened me were the day care centers running in the campus where i worked. Poor miserable kids waiting for their parents who are stuck in their fancy cars. Wondering what child hood memories they will have.

Anyway could not take this torture anymore and called it quits. Left Bangalore for good and shifted to Hyderabad.

Now the irony, my organization cannot find senior people with the skills they want in Hyderabad. Hence they have started expanding in Bangalore and guess the location of the office: ORR

[gururajrv]

Trust me - nothing in Bangalore / even in this country will ever change. Problems such as this will continue to happen and will only get worse with time. They’ll never conserve water or even focus on these basic drains. Take example of Mysore Bangalore National Highway. It’s another disaster which has happened with no plan in place to look at fixing the problem at its root. Believe its too late considering the highway is now all nearing completion.

Governments focus on quicker completion to add feathers to their hat but care less on the quality of the execution of it. Sad, but true!

[androdev]

All CXOs and influential people of IT live in that part of the town. High end residential projects and schools etc also came up around that area. Commercial space builders also acquired huge land banks in that area. It’s a vicious circle of sorts.

Even traditional manufacturing that requires huge physical infrastructure is relatively more spread out around Bangalore. IT companies that can literally be setup in any corner of the city are unfortunately concentrated in that part of the town and I don’t think the situation will change in future.

[SoumenD]

And its raining again. So the condition would be worse tomorrow. People travelling to ORR, just work from home if you can for rest of the week. Not worth the pain.