Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
Post: I feel that the measures that are being taken to make Bengaluru green again are akin to the software patches that we release on a routine basis. The root cause lies elsewhere and in my humble opinion, none of the task forces that we have seen in the past few years address this issue. It is the issue of the increased Floor Space Index (FSI) within the planned BDA areas of Bengaluru. Since 1998, the Government of Karnataka has allowed FSI far in excess of 1.75 in residential areas and 3.5 in commercial areas. This, in my opinion is the root cause of all problems that we see today. All the BDA planned layouts were designed with an FSI of 1.5 to 1.75 in mind. The FSI is a very key design parameter in town planning. When you meddle with a key design parameter, you bring in an instability in the design which simply cannot be fixed. You can only provide patchwork solutions to the problems, which only aggravate the problem rather than solving it as we have seen with the umpteen number of flyovers, underpasses, road widenings and the like in the past few years. Each one has compounded the problem. Imagine, earlier a 60x40 site would have at most two dwelling units with an average of 1 to 1.5 cars per dwelling unit. So on a given day we would have at most 3 cars coming out of one 60x40 site. Now with those houses being converted to 8-10 flats each with say 1.25 cars on an average, we now have anywhere between 10 to 13 cars coming out of the same site. The ratio is 3 versus 13. Where are the roads to take that many cars? We are facing such a tough traffic situation with just about 10-15 percent of the bungalows/individual houses being converted to flats or commercial establishments. We have already denuded several roads off their trees and had to widen roads. Imagine what will be the situation when say 50% or more of those bungalows are converted. So any amount of planning you do will be inadequate forever until you fix the problem of converting bungalows into flats and shopping complexes. The only major fix that you need to put in place is to bring back the FSI within the Outer Ring Road and any other planned layouts beyond that to the pre-1998 levels and allow higher FSI only in the areas beyond that. Then in those areas where a higher FSI has been allowed, it should be mandatory to have minimum road widths of 100 feet for residential areas and 150 feet for commercial areas, feeder roads of 150-200 feet and arterial roads of 300 feet or more. Then in those areas develop amenities like schools, colleges (let the established ones set up their branches), parks, shopping complexes, etc. so that people living in those areas do not have to come to the areas within the outer ring road for any of their needs. Encourage companies to setup their offices in those areas so that people prefer to rent a flat in that area and have a short commute than commuting from the other end of Bangalore even if they own a house in some other part of Bangalore. Essentially the concept of satellite townships. That is the one and only long term fix to the traffic problems that we face now. All other planning has to be built on top of this. Any other solution that you put forth can only be a patch and a patch will always have the stitches showing up!!! However, this will enormous political will. Does the Government (or for that matter the MPs on the board of ABIDe) have it? Will it be able to withstand the pressures of the Real Estate Lobby (or shall we say Mafia)? I don't think so. But I would be pleasantly surprised (and would be grateful to the ABIDe members) if they can make it happen.
