ROADS AND TRANSPORT – 2013 – PROBLEMS
• BBMP and BDA have been slow to develop Priority Corridors (BIG 10, Outer Ring Road). As a result, vehicles don’t choose to stay on arterial roads.
• Road surface quality is extremely poor, and is made worse by inadequate planning for rains.
• Speed of construction is ridiculously slow. BDA /BBMP /Metro all seem in slow mode.
• Over-emphasis on vehicular movement. Pedestrians and cyclists suffer as a result.
• Inadequate bus fleet, plus weak last mile connectivity. At least 1500 per year needed to be added.
• TTMCs in wrong locations, makes transit difficult. Ticket prices impose a penalty on those switching buses.
• Key entry points – Silk Board, Hebbal – need redevelopment.
• Standard design for public infrastructure is needed. Plus, kickbacks in public works is scaring away skilled contractors.
• Parking policy deferred again by Council.
ROADS AND TRANSPORT – 2013 – HOPEFUL SIGNS
• BMTC’s Big10 system is being expanded, and feeder services are planned to connect to the trunk routes
. Routes are being renumbered logically. Fleet strength is growing, though not fast enough.
• An effort to improve / standardise road designs is being taken up by BBMP, initially for a few roads. On these, the positions of the drains and footpaths are being switched, so that storm-water runoff can be collected better.
• DULT is making efforts to bring some non-motorised solutions to the city, and also to advocate properly priced parking in public spaces.
• Government seems willing to take up commuter rail connectivity to nearby towns.
• BTP is the first fully-digital traffic police force in the country. Its second-generation control room is about to open.
• BMLTA has conducted one round of measurement of mobility metrics. Needs to do this annually.
• Station access plans for Metro stations are being developed by BMLTA.
ROADS AND TRANSPORT – 2013 – NOT GOOD ENOUGH
• Government has not yet recognised that public transport needs operational subsidy. A profitable BMTC should not be the goal. Instead, we should measure and improve level of service.
• There is virtually no effort to learn from other countries /cities on how to improve speed of construction in the roads sector. Technological advances seem to be nearly absent.
• Still no kerbside taxi service. City needs at least one lakh more taxis.
• A standard manual for infrastructure [Bangalore Street Design Manual], which covers roads, signals, junctions, under-passes, crosswalks, and much more is needed.
• New drain design must be adopted on all roads, not only TenderSURE ones. Soak pits are needed every 100 m to charge groundwater and prevent flooding.
• There is no routine data collection to understand changing patterns of mobility, nor a planning process to respond to growing needs. BMLTA needs to take up these functions.
• Priced parking must be introduced.
Related Articles
Peripheral Ring Road: Out of 4500 Cr, is 3850 Cr for grabbing land?
Building drains and filling potholes still not scientific
Whitefield residents get BBMP to initiate road repair
Road near Vibgyor school cries for attention
A big problem seen currently with bangalore roads is deliberate digging of roads(creating potholes/craters) and not patching it up properly. No one really knows whether these digging of roads are sanctioned..
These underground drainage pits being created are very badly designed. almost all important roads would have been dug on either left lane or right lane and not patched peroperly.
Most of the roads are of very bad quality with asphalt totally washed out in many of the important roads.
Pavements would have been laid with either no provision for rain water to get into these drainages or the sloping of roads would be such that the water will not flow towards these drainages.
I strongly feel that these issues are not because there is lack of talent, but it is more to do with corruption.
Govt itself has accepted/acknowledged that bad roads will lead to perennial contracts being issued and contractors/councillors and other people to make good money throughout the life.
-Praveen
A big problem seen currently with bangalore roads is deliberate digging of roads(creating potholes/craters) and not patching it up properly. No one really knows whether these digging of roads are sanctioned..
These underground drainage pits being created are very badly designed. almost all important roads would have been dug on either left lane or right lane and not patched peroperly.
Most of the roads are of very bad quality with asphalt totally washed out in many of the important roads.
Pavements would have been laid with either no provision for rain water to get into these drainages or the sloping of roads would be such that the water will not flow towards these drainages.
I strongly feel that these issues are not because there is lack of talent, but it is more to do with corruption.
Govt itself has accepted/acknowledged that bad roads will lead to perennial contracts being issued and contractors/councillors and other people to make good money throughout the life.
-Praveen