Commute

In October 2023, Deputy Chief Minister/Bengaluru Development Minister, DK Shivakumar, had announced a 190 kilometre-tunnel road as a solution to ease Bengaluru traffic. In May 2024, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) announced its initial phase plan to construct an 18 kilometre-tunnel road connecting Hebbal and Central Silk Board. This road will include five entry and exit points for vehicles. A tunnel road is an underground passageway for vehicles to travel through. It provides a direct route through an obstacle, such as a mountain or body of water, which would be otherwise impractical or impossible to traverse through by vehicle.…

Wayfinding is part of global travel culture but in India it poses a serious challenge. Even in the era of national job mobility and a post-COVID tourism wave, governments don’t make it easy for people to find public places and essential facilities even in the biggest cities. Politicians are keen to provide clear pointers only to the next election. Maps online provide some guidance, but have nothing to say on the conditions on the ground. Try finding your way from Bengaluru’s bustling Majestic Namma Metro station to the City Railway Station just 200 metres away across the road. For a…

Four hundred and twenty people continue to lose their lives on Indian roads every single day. In 2022, India recorded 4.43 lakh road crashes, resulting in the death of 1.63 lakh people. Vulnerable road-users like pedestrians, bicyclists and two-wheelers riders comprised 67% of the deceased. Road crashes also pose an economic burden, costing the exchequer 3.14% of India’s GDP annually.  These figures underscore the urgent need for effective interventions, aligned with global good practices. Sweden's Vision Zero road safety policy, adopted in 1997, focussed on modifying infrastructure to protect road users from unacceptable levels of risk and led to a…

Recently, there’s been news that the new traffic challan system will mandate a Rs 10,000 penalty on old or new vehicles if owners don't acquire the Pollution Under Control (PUC) certification on time. To tackle expired certificates, the system will use CCTV surveillance to identify non-compliant vehicles and flag them for blacklisting from registration. The rule ultimately has several drawbacks, given the difficulty in acquiring PUC certificates in the first place. The number of PUC centres in Chennai has reduced drastically with only a handful still operational. Only the petrol bunk-owned PUC centres charge the customers based on the tariff…

On a road as busy as the Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR), there are many challenges residents and commuters face because of bad road infrastructure — some of these include the increased risk of accidents and traffic hold-ups that come with potholes. On discovering and using the ‘Namma Saalai’ app to fix potholes on the OMR, we, at the Federation of OMR Resident Associations (FOMRRA) decided to bring awareness about the app. We not only posted about it on our X (Twitter) account, @fomrra, but also encouraged and educated several RWAs to use the app and benefit from it. The above stretch, a…

Traffic congestion and mobility are among Bengaluru's topmost concerns today. In the run-up to the elections, as the spotlight turns on how the city's sitting MPs have performed over the last five years, their actions and stance on this issue certainly deserve some scrutiny. How have they engaged with the issue? Did they propose any solutions? The major traffic & mobility issues In 2019, Bengaluru recorded the second highest number of vehicle, with over 80 lakh. Nearly 84% of households have motor vehicles. Lack of first and last mile connectivity, reduced bus ridership, under-completion of metro connectivity across the city,…

The transformation of Chennai, from a trading post entrenched in the bylanes of Fort St. George, to a bustling metropolis with gleaming skyscrapers along the historic Mahabalipuram road underscores its economic progress and growth. The visionaries of the city exhibited exemplary foresight in establishing an extensive road network and suburban train systems that set a precedent for the future. The city’s continued investment in the Metro Rail, connecting important nodes of the city, is encouraging use of public transport. As per the Ease of Moving Index — Chennai City Profile report, Chennai leads the way with the highest mass transit…

The traffic congestion at Outer Ring Road (ORR)-Sarjapura Road has been a long-standing issue. To address this, Citizen Matters held a panel discussion, ‘Solving Sarjapura-ORR Gridlock’ on February 26th. Moderated by Meera K, co-founder of Citizen Matters, the panel included G T Prabhakar Reddy, Chief Traffic Manager, BMTC; Vivekanand Kotikalapudi, Urban Mobility Advisor; Mukund Kumar, Managing Trustee, Iblur Environs Trust; and Srinivas Alavilli, Fellow- Integrated Transport and Road Safety, WRI India.  Sarjapura Road is an integral connection to the IT corridor of south-east Bengaluru. ORR is completely developed with a focus on tech parks. There is currently a surge in…

Devendra Fadnavis, the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra recently launched the Mumbai Metropolis  Metaverse, an immersive virtual representation of the way Mumbai will look by the year 2025. This metaverse includes twelve infrastructure projects, which is said will transform Mumbai. One of these projects is the Mumbai Metro. Citizen Matters looks at existing Metro Lines, their connections with Central and Western suburban railways and the prominent areas/stations they connect. Which are the three lines currently operational in Mumbai? Blue Line or Line 1 On 8th June, 2014 the first metro line was started in Mumbai. It was dubbed the Blue…

The recent spurt of States announcing free public bus travel for women has led to much commentary on women freeloading off the hardworking men; of women roaming the streets with no purpose; of greater financial burden on transport undertakings who are already in the red; and of course, a general sense of this being unfair — why do only women get to travel free? To analyse these claims and assess the benefits and drawbacks of the fare-free bus scheme for women, Citizen consumer and civic Action Group (CAG) surveyed 3,000 women across six cities in Tamil Nadu, two years after…