Commute

The Ramagondanahalli-Borewell Road in Whitefield stretches more than two kilometres connecting Varthur Road to Borewell Road. This area falls under Ward  84, Hagduru under Mahadevapura constituency. This has about a thousand residential dwellings mostly in the form of flats and villas. With quite a few of them being relatively new apartments, there are at least about 600 families who are staying here at present and this number is expected cross 1,000 in the next few months. This road also is home to a beautiful lake named Sheelavanthana kere. Giant potholes and non-functional street lights on the Ramagondanahalli-Borewell Road in Whitefield.…

Whitefield. I know the very mention of that name is starting to remind people about all the things that are going wrong in that part of town. In my recent visits to that side too, I have been surprised by the degree to which the city has collapsed over there, and wondering what can be done to retrieve the situation. Rather than continue the litany of complaints, I thought I would put together the things that can be done to tackle the problem, initially focusing on roads and transport. A beeline of vehicles waiting on Varthur Main Road, near Kundalahalli…

File pic. Pic: Kedar Nadella Over the last year several Indian cities have witnessed rapid growth of app-based, on-demand cab services such as Uber, Ola, TaxiForSure etc. These services have prompted debate among policy makers, users and other stakeholders on their efficacy, reliability, sustainability and impact on environment, and on black and yellow taxi/regular cabs/public transport. This can be seen in the recent launch of the City Taxi Scheme 2015.   EMBARQ India is conducting a detailed research study to understand the impact of such services. This research can guide regulators/government to frame policies for the sustainability of aggregator models…

Last week, former Deputy CM and opposition leader KS Eshwarappa said Chief Minister Siddaramiah's statements have hurt the sentiments of a community. Dear Mr Eshwarappa, you are right about sentiments hurt, but it's not related to food or culture. Our sentiments are boiling - over the craters on the road that threaten our lives every single day, over the water stagnating in drains that's creating colonies of dengue everyday, over the unbelievable mess of traffic that keeps us all immobile on the roads for several hours in a day, over the highly polluted air that never lets us breathe easy,…

In anticipation of the possible rush of traffic at the railway station and at bus stands, the Bengaluru Traffic Police has made special arrangements for traffic on October 21st . Impacted areas include City railway station, Kempegowda bus terminal, Shanthinagar bus terminal, Mysore road bus terminal, Yeswantpur bus terminal and Chikka Lalbagh bus terminal. In addition, private vehicles will not be allowed to use some roads, and parking has been banned on some others. Do remember that KSRTC has also planned for 1,500 additional buses for the Dasara weekend, so there is bound to be more vehicles on the city roads.  …

The illuminated Mysore Palace during Dasara. Pic: Muhammad Mahdi Karim, Wikimedia Commons A press note from KSRTC details the special arrangements that have been made by the transport corporation to deal with the additional demand for buses during Dasara. In addition to the existing services, an additional 1,500 buses are being deployed between October 21st and October 23rd. This is to ensure that those looking to attend the Mysuru Dasara, or make use of the long weekend, are catered to.  Additional buses 1500 extra buses will be exclusively operated from Kempegowda bus station, Mysuru Road bus station, Shanthi Nagar TTMC…

Pavements in Indira Nagar 2nd stage are no place for pedestrians, only for construction material. Pic: Praveen S The 10th main or Water Tank road (Ward 89) and the 10th A main (Ward 80) road in Indira Nagar 2nd Stage are two parallel roads connecting 100 feet road and Indiranagar Double road. Both these roads are have ten residential crosses to their left, and the 4th cross road cuts across them, leading to the Indiranagar metro station on CMH road. Off late, many people who want to skip the traffic at the CMH road-100 feet road signal near KFC, have…

This is Akshayanagar Layout, situated off Bannerghatta Road (Note: Akshayanagar is also the name of another layout situated in Ramamurthy Nagar, Bangalore). Sandwiched between Hulimavu Lake on one side and Begur Lake on the other, Akshayanagar is an upcoming locality with several residential projects under construction currently. Owing to its proximity to Bannerghatta Road, Electronic City and Jigani, it is a much sort after locality by Bangalore’s techie population. Akshayanagar Layout can be accessed from Bannerghatta Road via the BDA 80 feet road (one of the many access points), which joins the Hulimavu-Begur Road, and further connects to the Yelenahalli…

Pic: Sameer Shisodia The vehicle-free street initiative being tried out at HSR layout as an experiment is a good idea, for reclaiming common spaces. Its success and viability, however, depends on ‘we, the people’, who are responsible for making it workable. It can be done, and I have seen it working elsewhere. In Cambridge (UK), car owners park their vehicles on the periphery of the city and take feeder buses so that the city centre doesn’t get clogged. No one grumbles; no one seeks exemption; no one tries to break the rules. No fare concessions are offered, either. Around Harvard…

If an accident is caused by the poor condition of a road, should the BBMP be held responsible? And should the corporation be forced to pay compensation to such victims? There's been a lot of heated debate about this following the unfortunate recent incident, in which a woman fell off a scooter and died as her husband swerved to avoid a pothole on the street. With the cops booking the husband for negligent driving, and the BBMP pointing fingers at BDA, it seems that we were only too ready to add insult to the tragedy, whereas what is really needed…