Commute

A few days back BMTC Volvo crew went on a flash strike, inconveniencing thousands of commuters, against a new rule scrapping overtime when they fail to meet a target for the number of trips per day. They cited bad traffic and road conditions for not being able to meet those targets consistently. When we look at it from a more sympathetic perspective, BMTC crew and Traffic police personnel do bear most of the brunt from fast-crumbling roads and the rains which have added an all new dimension to an already overcrowded, grid-locked city. Given these conditions and the need to…

This is an attempt to share information about roads. Lot of information is also available in the internet, so I have taken care not to repeat the same. So, how is a road different from regular soil surface, and why so? Let’s take regular surface; the playground. It is fine to play when there is no rain. We can even go cycling or ride a motorbike. However, when it rains, it becomes soft and slushy. Cycle wheel or feet go deeper into the soil. In such cases, what do we do? We place a big stone and step over it.…

The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) commissioner seems to have sprung into action, especially after Chief minister Siddaramaiah’s  'surprise' city tour on September 7, 2013. Taking the directions of Siddharamaiah forward, BBMP Commissioner Lakshmi Narayana, told Citizen Matters that all arterial and sub-arterial roads in Bangalore will be pothole-free by end of February, 2014. However, citizens have heard such claims and promises many a time in the past.  High quality concrete roadsA pilot project worth 25 lakhs to develop Park House Road in front of Karnataka Public Services Commission office, behind Vidhana Soudha, into a high-quality concrete road, was underway. The…

Metro Phase II work takes off, with KIADB starting the land acquisition process. File pic. Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board  (KIADB) conducted the first hearing for the owners of properties to be acquired for alignment of Metro Phase II on 4 September, 2013. The properties notified were for Ragigudda and Silk Board stations, on RV Road- Bommasandra line. Metro is all geared up to start the Phase-II work by January 2014. To achieve this target, the process of identification of properties was already initiated by KIADB officers deputed to the Metro, in the last few weeks. In the first hearing,…

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has started with its homework, in a bid to merge the elevated road from Jayadeva junction to Central Silk Board with Metro’s R V Road - Bommasandra line. The preliminary research and other procedures are underway. The flyover planned to be extended till Central Silk Board at a cost of Rs.150 crore has already been announced in the maiden budget of the Congress government. “The project is still in the preliminary stage. A feasibility report and DPR is yet to be formed, which needs to be assigned to a consultant,” says BBMP Executive Engineer,…

Residents affected by the realignment of Metro track near Jayadeva Hospital claim to be harassed by the land acquisition and survey officers, even before the Phase-II is officially finalised. One of the residents, Anil Kumar (45), Freelance Consultant in Strategy and Project Management, has been living opposite to Jayadeva since 1986 with his mother who is affected by Parkinson’s disease. He says, “Two officers named Venkat Raman and Gopal Swamy, who claimed to be the survey supervisors from Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (BMRCL) visited us in order to verify and procure copies of property documents, Khata certificate and latest…

On 1 August 2013, within a month of state budget being presented, tenders have been called for five signal-free corridors. It has stirred a hornet’s nest again with speculations about land acquisition and traffic problems while the work is on. The last date for submission of tenders is 4 September 2013. These five corridors cover approximately 55 km inside the city. They are: 1) Identified stretches of Hosur Road, including Central Silk Board Junction to Vellara Junction2) Identified stretches of Outer Ring Road (ORR), from Mysore Road Junction to Central Silk Board Junction (13.4 Km);3) From Government Soap Factory junction…

BMTC is about to roll out the second generation of the Big10 system. In the first instance, the system shifted from destination orientation to direction orientation along the Big 10 arterial radials of the city (later expanded to 12). Then we added the BigCircle routes, and the cross-cutting routes of the K series. Now comes the next phase - a full trunk-and-feeder system to be deployed first on Hosur Road and then on the other arterials. Here are some of the key features (and I'll discuss each of them in detail in future posts).(a) Electronic City, Chandapura, and Attibele will be…

Number of Bengaluru-based citizens groups and NGOs have filed a writ petition in the High Court of Karnataka against government authorities and private firms over the Bellandur-Agara Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project. The SEZ project, which is being built in a sensiive area between Bellandur and Agara lake, has been in the news recently on questions over environmental and water clearances.  Citizen Matters is awaiting further details regarding first proceedings of the case. We will run a detailed report when we get more details.   

The residents of Borewell Road in Whitefield are a worried lot. This once-peaceful, residential stretch is being targeted for road widening - for the second time in six years! This will result in many old homes and new apartments being demolished. Six years ago, the compound walls of homes were illegally razed and the road was widened on either side by 8 ft. All this, while the authorities claimed helpless to intervene and stop this act. Residents had to re-build their walls and repair their homes at their own expense. Now, six years later, this spectre has resurrected, to haunt…