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Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
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Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
Tagged: | Posted by RK Misra at 24-02-2009 15:28:51
Dear Friends,
As you are aware, ABIDe (Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure & Development) Task Force, with the Chief Minister as Chairman, Mr. Ananth Kumar (MP-Bangalore South) as Vice Chairman and Mr. Rajeev Chandrashekar (MP - Rajya Sabha) as Convener, has been constituted to revive and rebuild Bengaluru through a combination of Comprehensive planning, improved municipal services and new investments into infrastructure. ABIDe also owns the task of providing a blue-print for sustainable and orderly development of Bangalore under Bengaluru Vision 2020.
RK Misra and Ashwin Mahesh (IIM-B), are entrusted with the task of suggesting solutions to the Traffic and Transport issues of Bangalore - A tough job indeed :). Please visit http://abidebengalu ru.in/report/ show/7 to read and give suggestions on our recommendations.
The Transportation team at ABIDe has identified public transport as the most important tool in reducing traffic congestion and chaos on Bangalore roads. Given that metro rail network is still some years away, Bus based public transport system is being promoted with a corridor approach.
To promote public transport and make travel hassle free, 10 major arterial roads (Big-10) have been identified as high density traffic corridors which will be made junction/signal free with dedicated point-to-point Bus Services, both A/C and non-A/C buses, named as Big-10 service.
Priority Bus Lanes, Bus Bays, Paved Footpaths, Safe Pedestrian Crossings, Cycle Lanes (proposed) will also be introduced on these Big-10 routes. We have 3, 6, 12, 18 and 24 month deadlines to accomplish all these Road Infrastructure Improvement objectives on all Big-10 Corridors. Please visit ABIDe website for corridor and other details. - http://www.abideben galuru.in
However, deployment of Big-10 and Hop-on Hop-Off (HoHo) Bus Services has already begun.
Out of 10 Corridors Big-10 Bus Service is already in operation on Hosur Road (Vellara Jn - Electronic City) and HAL Airport Road (Trinity Jn - Whitefield-Hope Farm jn). This is proving to be extremely popular. Next week Bannerghatta Road Big-10 Service will start. In next 2 months all 10 Corridors will have Big-10 Bus Service with a frequency of 5-10 minutes, both A/C and Non-A/C Service.
This service CONVENIENTLY connects with Central Business District (CBD) HoHo Service (Kendra Sarige) at Vellara Jn on Hosur Rd and Trinity Jn on HAL Airport rd respectively. This makes it extremely convenient for anyone living and commuting on these routes to use this Big-10 Service in conjunction with CBD HoHo service to reach any point in the city including all shopping malls and offices, without the need to take their private vehicles to work or shop.
I have myself used these services and they are extremely convenient and efficient.
Please encourage all your friends and colleagues to use these BUS services. Traffic congestion will reduce only if we stop/reduce taking our cars to work and shop.
No amount of cribbing or road widening is going to help if we keep adding private cars to our roads. Now we have the comfortable and convenient public transport in close proximity to our homes and work places, lets use it and help our city and the environment.
PS: Please send this msg to your friends and colleagues with suitable modifications as you deem fit. We need to popularize public transport through media, blogs, personal contacts and word of mouth, to save Bangalore from traffic chaos.
RK
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Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
In reply to Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
Tagged: FSI, Traffic | Posted by Ayonam Ray at 06-03-2009 00:44:18
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.
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Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
In reply to Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
Tagged: Private-Buses | Posted by Vamsi Krishna Reddy Jannavarapu at 13-03-2009 10:45:16
Hi,
Do we have any social and political implications in banning the private buses on the Hosur Road?? . I see a lot of private buses running in the Electronics City- Majestic route as well as the Electronics City - K.R. Market route. These people dont follow traffic rules most of the time and the junctions become bottle necks for traffic because of irresponsible driving and parking. We can make the EC junction trouble free by bannign these buses from running. One more reason I suggest this is that there is a lot of revenue missing for BMTC because of this and also because these people charge more from the passengers. As I observe, the people who have used these once would not opt for it again but there seems to be a infinite supply of innocent first-timers.
I request Honourable Convener and the Honourable Chairman to look into this matter as this can solve the problem in one of the most crowded areas in outer Bangaluru.
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Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
In reply to Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
Tagged: | Posted by thangappan at 22-07-2009 22:00:02
Hi ,
There are 500+ people who travel from Indira Nagar , Jeevan bhima Nagar , Murugeshpalya , HAL 3rd stage etc to ELECTRONICS CITY daily.Since there are is no direct bus connectivity , people use their cars to reach Electronics city .
I think if there is a VOLVO bus service from Indira Nagar , Tippansandra , Jeevan bhima nagar , Murugeshpalaya etc Many people can avoid using cars .
(please note that company buses (like Infosys , wipro , HCL, HP buses) stops the trips by 7.30 am , so most people use the car so that we can start around 8 am - 9 am) .
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Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
In reply to Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
Tagged: | Posted by Anirban at 28-07-2009 10:58:13
Hi , There are 800+ people who travel from Koramangala(Prestige Acropolis,Ansal Krishna,Forum),Koramangala 8th Block,NGV(National Games Village),Sony World Juction,Raheja Residency,Koramangala ST Bed Layout,Koramangala 1st Block etc to Marathalli Ring Road-ITPL daily.Since there are is no direct bus connectivity , people use their cars to reach ITPL/White Field . I think if there is a VOLVO bus service from Forum, NGV, Koramangala 4th Block etc Many people can avoid using cars.And most people use the car from 8AM to 11AM and traffic become worse in Agara and other traffic juntion
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Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
In reply to Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
Tagged: | Posted by Vinod Krishnan at 19-08-2009 13:17:17
I think one important point is missed is the last mile connectivity. People staying about 1 to 2 kms away from the nearest bus stops on Big 10 routes find it difficult to use the buses since there isn't an easy way to get there. Have few places to park bikes or cycles along the key areas which intersect the Big 10 or Volvo routes would help in increasing the nos of people willing to use public transport.
This has been considered in the case of Metro but not for bus routes.
Thanks,
Vinod
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Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
In reply to Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
Tagged: | Posted by gautham shanbhag at 07-11-2009 11:00:52
Hi Everyone,
We definitely want to see a change in the way Bangalore is functioning. I have been living in Sydney for the past two years and I understand that people here are more health conscious and want to use sustainable transportation to have a better environment. With the increasing traffic and population in the city, it is a difficult problem to address.
We need to change the behavior of people if we wish to change the transportation problem. We need to have a public transport network where we can mix transport and pedestrians together and this can be achieved with the introduction of light rail in the areas such as K. R. Market where pedestrian movement is high.
A integrated transport network for the city would be most ideal. With the introduction of metro rail to the city, a real gift in the near future only if this has a support network where people will be forced to move out of the house without getting their car keys to reach the station.
Bangalore/ India has more potential to build a transport network which can have high returns in the near future for the government and also the environment only if Planned well now.
We can change the city only if we change people's behavior towards transport.
Hope to discuss this further..
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Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
In reply to Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
Tagged: | Posted by ganglatha at 25-12-2009 23:46:44
NICE corridor is almost complete now except for Bannerghatta road juncion near Gottigere. If sufficient car parking spaces are provided at all the 7 interchanges, people can easily car pool, especially those going to same workplace. Nominal parking charges can save and leave less carbon print.
BMTC service can also be started on NICE corridor.
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Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
In reply to Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
Tagged: | Posted by ganglatha at 28-12-2009 22:17:02
Do not spend NOW Rs 5000 crores of tax payers’ money to build high speed train link to help few thousands of people a day between BRV grounds and BIAL airport. Instead, please attempt to use and improvise existing Chickaballapur railway line, make it double line and later electrify, use new train coaches which approximately costs about Rs 400 crores. It does not qualify for a high speed need as the current trains can run at 100kmph and reach in 40 minutes with TWO STOPS from city. Even with 250 kmph trains you can hardly save 10 minutes considering the acceleration and deceleration. But lakhs of people waste hours of their time everyday in city. These lakhs of people must get higher priority and their interests are to be satisfied before couple of thousand people.
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Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
In reply to Re: Leave Cars - Use Buses - Make BLR Green Again
Tagged: | Posted by ganglatha at 30-08-2010 22:22:04
NH4 - Yeshvanthpur(Goragontepalya) to Nelamangala will soon be shorter in terms of time by 30 minutes. Thanks to the elevated road and access control road. But some of the most important points are not considered and still not too late to implement.
Vital few are
1> Pedestrian subways at Peenya -2 nos, Dasarahally-2 nos, 8th mile, makali and madanayakanahally. Overhead crossings are simply not accepted.
2> Vehicualar underpasses at Goragonte palya and CQAE corner along the Ring road considering the metro line coming right there. (Right turn under pass only at both places)
3> Fly over at Netaji Subhas chandra bose circle (near Kantheerava junction)
4> Widening of ring road from CQAE to BEL circle including Railway over bridge to Tumkur line.
5> Widening of the service roads at all the 7 places where the provision for U turn is made. Road should be made like "C" and vehicles going straight
need not slow down when other truck is making a U turn
6> All bus stops should have bus bays and a barrier should be constructed to demark the through road and bus bay.
7> Under pass at 8th mile junction from Tumkur side to City only
8> Under pass at Jalahally circle along NH4
Highest priority in the same chronological order to be given for the points mentioned. Then only the justice will be made to all the road users, pedestrians, Through vehicles, Long distance users, short distance users, BMTC users and Trucks.
Some of these suggestions were uploaded to NHAI website about 8 months back have yielded no results.
All the development projects should have proper long term vision for atleast next 10 years to come.
CG
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