[Chetan23]

All the roads leading to Orion mall are jam packed.
It took me 45 mins to travel from Mahalakshmi metro station to Sandal soap factory. I guess because of the holiday many people are heading into malls to spend time.

[m2maddy]

Going towards Kanakapura Road from Vasanthapura was a nightmare today, for 2kms took 55mins, and that is all due to mismanaged traffic and horrible driving sense form folks.

[PreludeSH]

Originally Posted by Chetan23

All the roads leading to Orion mall are jam packed.
It took me 45 mins to travel from Mahalakshmi metro station to Sandal soap factory. I guess because of the holiday many people are heading into malls to spend time.

Chose the wrong day to visit Mall of Asia. Even coming out at 10:30 pm was little difficult. Wonder how people living around that area manage.

[rohan_iitr]

Originally Posted by vidyanand

As long as it eases the traffic, I am all good for this 1-way route. Once the Autos fall in line, people will work out shorter ways to reach Elevated Flyover on Hosur Road.
There are few junctions that they need to normalize (by stopping 2 wheelers and auto into forced 2 way), rest seems good. Evening traffic used to take 15 mins just to cross the BHEL deadlock, those will get resolved.

Some drivers are opposed to this 1-way idea by just considering the extra distance. People should understand that extra 3 kms of moving traffic is better than sitting in deadlock with running engine.

Completely agree on the deadlock at BHEL junction. It used to get completely choked in the evenings. Something was urgently required to be done here. Since the roads cannot be widened any further, one way was the only option.

Also agree that it is much more pleasant to be driving in moving traffic (even if means having to cover an extra distance) compared to being stuck in slow moving traffic. As someone who loves to drive, I am enjoying the slightly longer, but signal free commute to work in the morning.

But the real trial will begin in January when everyone is back in Bangalore and when the schools reopen.

Don't know how they will get the auto drivers to follow the one ways.

[Chetan_Rao]

'Holiday season = peaceful city driving' is pretty much a myth now. There are so many vehicles, even half leaving town barely makes a perceptible difference.

[capnemo]

Have come to my home-town which is Kozhikode in Kerala and even though the streets here have started getting crowded compared to 4-5 years ago, the good surface condition of the roads and the general road sense of driving junta (with the notable exception of bus drivers) make driving such a pleasure compared to Bangalore's roads.

I don't know what misery lies in store once the new year begins in Bangalore - half the roads in my area in East Bangalore were dug up when we left.

[airguitar]

Originally Posted by Blr_RK

Saying that old Bangalore is not priority is not correct. Not sure if you have travelled in Metro in CBD areas, it is being used for the maximum extent. Of course ORR, Manyata and EC also needs connectivity at the earliest

That was not what I meant TBH. I have lived all my life in Bengaluru, commuted to all parts of the city for school, city, college, work etc. I'm not saying that Old Bangalore is not priority, but I'm asking why it should be the priority each time for anything new. Go by taxes collected, number of people commuting, GDP of the area in mind when rolling out new things. Bring some things earlier to this part first.

Sample this

1. Quite a few roads in South BLR get relaid every 6 months despite it's good surface already. I have never seen bad stretches of roads in Jayanagar or JPN 1/2/ Phase.
2. All roads in South and West Bangalore are Lane Marked.
3. All traffic signals are in place at junctions
4. AI cameras etc that combat unruly traffic comes first to South Bengaluru and Central, when the "new bangalore" areas have the most unruly traffic.
5. 2,3 &4 are completely absent in East Bengaluru/Whitefield. Not even on the Whitefield Main road there is any traffic setup of any kind.
6. Cauvery water, penetration is minimal in East Bengaluru ( I can understand the geography and therefore why South got earlier, and also aware that more of East is being taken care of in the coming phase )
7. Metro - There is Metro all the way till the end of Kanakapura road, covering villages. ITPL got metro years later; and that too when more traffic is on the ORR side.
8. Forget all these, outside of infra : a) Schools are more expensive (1.5 x or 2 x sometimes ) b) The kind of vegetables or fruits that land up at shops in 'New Bengaluru' is far inferior but more expensive

So, everyone seems to know who to ding. Perhaps people get what they deserve any way.

[itwasntme]

New Year celebrations: All you need to know about traffic curbs in Bengaluru

https://indianexpress.com/article/ci...spots-9748578/

[deep_bang]

Originally Posted by airguitar

That was not what I meant TBH. I have lived all my life in Bengaluru, commuted to all parts of the city for school, city, college, work etc. I'm not saying that Old Bangalore is not priority, but I'm asking why it should be the priority each time for anything new. Go by taxes collected, number of people commuting, GDP of the area in mind when rolling out new things. Bring some things earlier to this part first.

The reality is that development is driven by votes. Unless the new people coming from other states get their voting cards and consider Bangalore their real home, this situation will not change.

[dust-n-bones]

Originally Posted by am1m

Not ordering enough train sets and the mess with the Chinese order, because of which the Yellow Line is being delayed for over a year. Not bothering about pedestrian infra, or enough scanning machines at the busy stations, bad co-ordination when it has anything to do with the Indian Railways, because of which a whole section of a line gets delayed for a year till some few hundred meters can be sorted out.

I wonder how does this 'everything ready, except trainsets or xyz' situation work financially. BMRCL I assume has loaded up 100% of the available financing on its balancesheet, but there is no revenue to repay.

The classic 'home loan disbursed 100%, but no handover because of add-your-builders-excuse-of-the-season' trap.

This keeps happening with a depressing frequency. Doesn't it create a big bankruptcy risk for BMRCL? Why does BMRCL not have a) better planning to address this 3 years ago rather than appear clueless 2 years after, and b) better control - if a vendor is a bottleneck, can't it switch vendors in time or get trains on lease from a host of other metro projects which are active all over the country?

This hand-wringing seems to be too much of a cute innocence to me, or maybe just bad project managers at work.

Originally Posted by vinu_h

Routes and priority are planned purely based on their ability to acquire land quickly, cost & RoI and this logic would hold good for any city in a democratic country. A proven method to bypass land acquisition problems is to go underground at 3x cost of overground.

With land being the biggest component of cost and time-overruns, I fail to understand why there is no right-of-way for metro when new roads are planned. There is nothing in the designs of satellite, peripheral ring roads as an example. If that were so, metro projects at least aligned to new roads can be implemented much faster, rather than bolted on later as an afterthought.

Of course, that way there will be no billion dollar tenders for 'double-decker' flyovers, or fancy tunnels.

[vinu_h]

Originally Posted by dust-n-bones

With land being the biggest component of cost and time-overruns, I fail to understand why there is no right-of-way for metro when new roads are planned.

Priority can only be accorded to early listing/ruling of cases related to the metro. Until a ruling is received on a case filed by the one from whom land is sought by BMRCL, the project cannot proceed.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by dust-n-bones

Why does BMRCL not have a) better planning to address this...

Specifically with the case of the Yellow Line, the issue was that a Chinese corporation was the lowest bidder, the condition was they would use a local manufacturing partner, and that kept getting delayed for some reason or the other.

(https://www.news18.com/auto/bengalur...y-8749780.html)

[airguitar]

Originally Posted by deep_bang

The reality is that development is driven by votes. Unless the new people coming from other states get their voting cards and consider Bangalore their real home, this situation will not change.

I have to agree with this, irrespective of it sounds fair or not. It certainly is a major reason. Just wondering if Mumbai and New Delhi/NCR have such a phenomenon too, of some pockets getting stepmotherly treatment for similar reasons

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

'Holiday season = peaceful city driving' is pretty much a myth now. There are so many vehicles, even half leaving town barely makes a perceptible difference.

+100. While it certainly is better compared to non vacation periods, it is not as calm as it used to be ( both during Diwali and New year eve this year). Sizable traffic in most parts, and especially so near malls, where most of the no- vacationing-crowds seem to be hanging out. Restaurants and breweries seem to full to the brim too. Seems like a little barbeque time in the balcony/terrace is the only peaceful way now.

[gtonsing]

Originally Posted by airguitar

+100. While it certainly is better compared to non vacation periods, it is not as calm as it used to be ( both during Diwali and New year eve this year). Sizable traffic in most parts,

I think I have mentioned it before but will mention it here again. I think its the overall design of our roads. Just because I experienced it this morning. Coming from Hennur side, you get up on the broad (rather bumpy) Hennur flyover and it ends abruptly in the mainroad where it suddently becomes narrow until Lingarajapuram and beyond. You get to this bottle neck very fast - thats all the flyover did.

Same case with the elevated flyover terminating near the Silk board choke point.
Temples, mosques and other structures that are difficult to remove for road widening is also one of the reasons why our roads are not wide enough to take traffic.

Also, the general thinking that if there is space on my right (which is supposed to be left for on-coming traffic from the opposite direction) we go and fill that gap, causing jams unnecessarily at any point.

[anandhsub]

Originally Posted by deep_bang

The reality is that development is driven by votes. Unless the new people coming from other states get their voting cards and consider Bangalore their real home, this situation will not change.

Most constituencies in Bangalore have 5-6 lakh voters vs ~ 2 lakh voters in rest of karnataka.

I am a registered Bangalore voter since 2009 but I feel it is useless. I don't understand why my vote should be worth less than half of someone in Sirsi.