Commute

Hosur Road tops the chart in fatal accidents. The highway extending from Kudlu gate to Huskur gate near Electronic City, saw the highest numbers of accidents resulting in spot deaths in Bengaluru over the last three years. Citizen Matters tried to understand why the accident rate was so high on Hosur Road and what was being done to improve the situation, and hit upon many interesting facts. National Highway hinders city’s traffic 36 out of the 55 fatal accidents in 2014, have occurred on Hosur Road. The area falls under Electronic City Traffic Police limits. The fence between the service…

Pic: Meena ArtwaniPic: Meena ArtwaniPic: Meena ArtwaniPic: Meena ArtwaniPic: Meena ArtwaniPic: Meena Artwani‹ › $(document).ready(function(){ $('.carousel .carousel-inner .item').first().attr('class', 'active item');});  Respectful Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Officials, I am Meena, a resident of 6th Cross, Manjunatha Layout, Thanisandra Main road near Elements Mall, Ramaiah North City. I would like to bring to your urgent attention that this area is becoming inhabitable, day after day. The area is plagued with many issues like the ones below: The area has open drains (gutters) and the individual sanitary connections are not connected to main underground drain (UGD) system. These drains overflow during the rains.…

Illustration: Narasimha Vedala On April 10th the Jayanagar police station in association with  Bengaluru  traffic police held an awareness programme called Pehle Aap (after you), to emphasise the need for vehicle drivers to heed the safety of others on the road, especially pedestrians, especially elderly pedestrians. Ironically, less than 24 hours later, I had occasion to visit the Jayanagar police station to file a complaint. I and another elderly pedestrian (male), were waiting  to cross the road at the busy intersection facing the shopping complex at 4th block, at 11 am  on Saturday April 11th.The signal turned  red for traffic flowing …

The period of relief for people in Bengaluru using vehicles registered out-of-the-state is over, as the High Court has ruled that the stay on collecting taxes is not applicable to all. On April 8th, the High Court limited the stay on collecting lifetime taxes till further orders, applicable only to the petitioner of the on-going case that contested the tax levied on a particular petitioner. This has in effect vacated the unofficial stay on the collection of lifetime taxes from vehicles registered outside Karnataka, traveling in this state for more than 30 days. The order issued by the High Court…

Why are all the roads being dug up, without any apparent rhyme or reason/ The worst part of the digging is always the aftermath...the dug-up areas are left in mounds of dirt and earth, and pedestrians and traffic alike have to negotiate holes and mounds which can be very dangerous.   Why can we not enforce a rule whereby the name of the agency doing the digging, the purpose of the excacationn, and the contact no. of the contractor must be prominently displayed? The contractor must also be held accountable for the proper filling-in and paving of the dug-up area. …

It is terrible to know of people losing lives in accidents. What if we know which areas are accident-prone? We could try avoiding those routes, or at least be careful while passing through the area. In this background, Citizen Matters tried to compile a list of top ten areas that are most accident-prone in Bengaluru. We also tried to understand why the accidents are more at these places and what is being done to solve the problems. We took into consideration the total number of accident cases over the last three years to come up with top 10 list. Over…

Kundalahalli gate, Hosur Road, Old Airport Road, CBD, Old Madras Road, Koramangala Sony junction, Banashankari bus stop, Nrupathunga Road, K G Road, Mysore Road, Tumkur road are a few areas that commuters would avoid if they could. These are wide roads but the sheer volume of traffic, stretches of roads that bottleneck and constant civil works like cables or drainage pipe laying or electrical transformer repairs make these roads perfect traffic gridlock examples. Roads under Tender SURE Phase 1 Vittal Mallya Road St. Marks Road Richmond Road Residency Road Museum Road Commissariat Road Cunningham Road Roads under Tender SURE Phase…

Way back in 2007, a Comprehensive Traffic and Transport Proposal was given by Government of India. As per that, we had the Phase 1 Metro in Bengaluru, which is now being constructed, feeder Monorail / Light Rail, Bus Rapid Transit and Suburban Rail. This can be found here: CTTP 2007 From 2007 till 2015, the population has grown tremendously. So many vehicles have added to Bangalore Roads. New comers to Bangalore, especially bachelors who come from other cities come with some clothes  and documents after they get their first job or in search of the job. Initially they manage with…

It started with a few shopkeepers giving customers change in the form of boiled sweets or toffees; but now it seems to have developed into a form of payment! At most toll roads. Toll collectors don't even bother to give change, but hand over the receipt for the toll, with some cellophane-wrapped candy. They actually act affronted when one tells them that one will not accept this as change, and grudgingly part with the change in coins, which,obviously, they had all along.  Every "toffee" or candy may represent one rupee, but the customer is being shortchanged, because these sweets have…

Another Railway Budget has come and gone from the “acche din” government. However, there has been no mention of Commuter Railway for Bengaluru. The biggest beneficiary of these services are people of the city. The blame for this, however,  is not with the center, but with the State government. there was much the State could have done to facilitate Commuter Railway, which was not done. Here is the list of such issues: Lack of political will: The government of the day has the wherewithal to announce multi-crore elevated highways and induce more motor vehicle demand in the name of congestion…