City: Bengaluru

The adage, ‘Catch them young,’ is associated with imbibing children with values. This dictum holds good when it comes to educating school children on road safety and making them change agents for safety and influencing the larger citizenry. A step in this direction was taken through the establishment of the first School Safety Zone at St. Joseph’s School (CBSE), Bengaluru.  The School Safety Zone is a result of 3Ms’ initiative Young Change Agents for Road Safety (YCARS) in partnership with Concern for Road and Pedestrian Safety (CoRPS) and United Way of Bengaluru. The initiative was launched on 19th November in…

Even as Karnataka leads the country in renewable energy production and Bengaluru has many successful solar installations, the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Ltd (BESCOM) is unlikely to meet its target of generating 1200 MW electricity from rooftop solar panels by 2022. BESCOM has achieved only 140 MW from solar rooftop so far, because it isn't getting enough applications from Bengalureans currently. The good news Bengaluru is definitely the Number 1 hotspot for solar installations. This year, the Kempegowda International Airport inaugurated its 3.35 MW rooftop solar power plant. "The airport has increased the consumption of solar power to over 50…

Traffic police notifies bus priority lane in ORR On Friday, the City Police Commissioner issued a notification prohibiting entry of other vehicles on the bus priority lane in ORR from Central Silk Board to Tin Factory and then towards Baiyyappanahalli. Only BMTC buses can use the lane, the notification said. Offenders will be booked under Section 177 of Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. They'll have to pay a fine of Rs 500 for the first offence and Rs 1000 for every subsequent one, said B R Ravikante Gowda, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic). The police also plans to write to the…

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I looked at the strategic issues and practical issues respectively, in implementing the bus priority lane (BPL) project in Outer Ring Road. In this concluding part of the series, I discuss solutions to these problems: Ban slow-moving vehicles in ORR If a slow-moving vehicle is allowed on the general lanes of ORR, the entire traffic will slow down painfully. Hence BBMP must ban the entry of all slow-moving vehicles in the corridor. This includes hand-pushed carts, pedal-rickshaws and animal-driven vehicles. Do not allow BPL to cross the path of private vehicles…

Bengaluru's bus priority lane (BPL) project was to be launched in Outer Ring Road (ORR) today, but has been postponed yet again. In the first part of this series, I explored issues with respect to the overall strategy of the project. What's also clear is that the BBMP and BMTC have not thought through many practical difficulties in implementing it. Here are some of those: BPL is actually Bus 'BMTC Priority Lane'! Presently the BPL is only for BMTC, and not for other forms of mass transport such as: State transport buses from all states Private intercity (long-distance) buses  Private buses…

Tomorrow, BMTC’s bus priority lane (BPL) will be fully operational on a 27-km stretch of Outer Ring Road (ORR), from Swami Vivekananda Road to Silk Board. The project was to be launched on November 1st, but was postponed to 15th, as BBMP was unable to complete the infrastructure work due to rains. There is much optimism about the project, but it has strategic and planning issues that should have been addressed beforehand. In the first part of this series, I look at the strategic problems around BPL. BPL is not contextualised in terms of the city’s transport needs The project…

Public transport in Bengaluru has deteriorated rapidly. Though the government declares magic bullet schemes such as elevated corridors and bus priority lanes, these pop out of thin air without any city-wide planning for transportation. Rather than jumping to ad-hoc solutions, we should first be clear about the problem. At the core of this is how we measure the performance of our transportation. If any public transport agency wants to win over the public as its customers, it will have to consider the following Key Success Factors (KSFs) for mobility, and find optimum solutions. End-to-end connectivity Pickup within 300 m of…

“It is a lack of (institutional) capacity which is leading to public woes on water. We are not in a position to give you quality services because of two things - one, manpower, and two, finances," said BWSSB Chairman Tushar Girinath, speaking at a panel discussion on ‘Sustainable, Equitable Access to Water’. Girinath explained that BWSSB has been experiencing a severe workforce crunch, its staff numbers woefully inadequate for carrying out the Board’s mandate effectively. Comparing BWSSB’s workforce with that of Delhi Jal Board, he noted that the latter employed 33,000 people (including regular and outsourced employees) for a population…

State government has announced its decision to add 6000 buses to the BMTC fleet in a phased manner and to reduce bus fares. This is a huge win for commuters, civil society groups and the city at large. The Bengaluru Bus Prayanikara Vedike (BBPV), a collective that advocates for better BMTC services, welcomes this long-awaited reform, and applauds the government and BMTC for the decision. Congratulations, Bengaluru! Decades of road widening, building flyovers and massive mobility infrastructure such as elevated roads and Metro, have only resulted in inadequate provision, increasing cost of public transport as well as traffic congestion. Finally,…

Metro train services will be suspended between RV Road and Yelachenahalli stations from 5 am of 14th November (Thursday) to the whole of 17th November (Sunday). BMRCL is launching viaduct superstructures on the span across the operational Green Line, south of RV Road. This work is part of developing RV Road Metro station as an interchange between the Green Line and the upcoming Electronic City Metro Corridor. The suspension is to facilitate new Metro line construction works to Bommasandra. Normal train services between Nagasandra and Yelachenahalli will be resumed from 5 am of 18 November (Monday). BMTC services available between…