In Praveen Sood’s latest post on Bangalore Traffic Police’s (BTP) page on the popular social networking site, Facebook, the Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), talks about one ways. Posted on 25th July, the post received more close to 15 comments by fans of the BTP page.
The note titled, ‘One-way? Two-way? No Way!’, talks about several one-ways being introduced in 2001 (Kempegowda, Richmond, Residency Road etc.,). Sood says that the decision to make them one-ways were made after a careful research undertaken by Bangalore Action Task Force (BATF) and not based on the whims of traffic police. He says that these changes have stood the test of time as the traffic continues to move even though the vehicle population has increased from 18 lakhs to 36 lakhs in a decade without proportionate increase in infrastructure.
Sood discusses the role of one-way roads play in easing traffic congestion and can be better than two-ways in many cases while adding that a pre-requisite for introducing one-way is that there must be an alternate road for reverse direction of flow nearby. He says that two-ways eliminate extra distance to be travelled but for every right turn, opposite flow has to stop and this leads to more halts and longer delays at signals. "Patience being the most scarce virtue among commuters, it leads to indiscipline, road rage, honking and violations," says Sood.
While some readers agreed with Sood, that one-ways are important, some kick-started a discussion about traffic congestion on Hosur Road, Hebbal Flyover and Uttarahalli Main Road. Ajit Matthew, one of the readers commented, "What you do not realise, with a longer free flowing one way route is that you actually burn less fuel. Ten minute fuel burnt on the move is much less than ten minutes of idling away."
Vijay Ramadas, commented that the two-way on the Hosur Road service lanes be removed as vehicles from HSR layout take the service lane to turn towards Begur Road blocking the traffic flowing straight towards Electronics city. "Making the service lanes two-way is another big blunder after the building the elevated toll way," says Ramadas.
Kotresh Basavarajaiah said, "At Hebbal flyover, the route between Boopsandra towards Yelahanka is one way, earlier its width was narrow, but now it is widened."
Sood, addressing Vijay’s comment said that service lanes are always two-way as they cater to the local traffic and not long distance traffic. He added that it was unfortunate that people enter service lane just to avoid signals. About the Hebbal flyover route, Sood said that issue was not about road width but about feasibility about safety. "There is no way it can become two-way without killing people," he said.
For the full article, please visit this link.
Traffic signs
In addition to notes written by Sood, the BTP page has a section, ‘Known you signs’. Each day an image of a different traffic sign is posted and explained.
A grab of some of the most recent signs posted on the page.
The Facebook page has a little over 6000 fans and can be visited here
⊕