Bengaluru: Who's to blame for the city's traffic gridlocks? Interminable waits at traffic signals, especially along the Ring Road and jams across the city during rush hour are part of life in B’luru now! Rapid economic growth has led to a doubling in the number of vehicles, which our traffic police simply aren’t equipped to manage. No mention has been made of the traffic police department’s plan to introduce B Tracks, while efforts to bring about a technology-enabled traffic management system remains just that — a promise.
If the English are fond of talking about the weather, Bengalureans have their own pet topic of discussion : the city’s notorious traffic that leaves them fuming most times of the day. Not only does the heavy traffic on the roads often result in gridlocks , but also affects the people’s quality of life as they struggle to cope with the tedious travel and the noise pollution caused by a large number of vehicles honking loudly while trying to get past each other on the narrow roads.
The problem is humungous as going by traffic expert, M.N. Sreehari, as many as 3,500 vehicles are on an average added every day to Bengaluru’s 69 lakh vehicles, and against the 900 vehicles per hour that a single lane is supposed to hold, the city’s roads accommodate between 3,000 to 4,000 vehicles per hour per lane.
The government’s solution has been to build more and more flyovers while work on the Metro Rail hobbles along. Some are steel monstrosities that can not only rust with time but also become redundant. The problem appears to lie in a lack of foresight by the city’s planners, who seem to have not borne in mind its rapidly increasing population and the proportionate increase in its vehicles.
Pointing out that Bengaluru has seen a 106 per cent growth in its population over the last two decades, Dr. Ashish Verma, mobility expert and associate professor, transportation systems engineering at the Indian Institute of Science( IISc.) notes that its infrastructure and urban planning have not kept pace with its rapidly increasing population and the growing number of vehicles on its roads.
“Although its rapid economic growth has substantially improved the city’s quality of life, challenging issues of urbanisation, motorisation, congestion and pollution loom large over it,” he observes.
The worst traffic jams are usually on routes leading to industrial and IT parks as people rush to get to their workplaces there in the morning and return home in the evening. Adding to the mess are cabs and autorickshaws parked on roads waiting for their customers. Some mobility experts blame the traffic congestion both on bad roads and poor traffic management by the police, who don’t do enough in their view to curb indisciplined drivers, and haphazard parking of vehicles.
“The traffic police are hardly seen in areas which suffer huge traffic jams, especially in the evenings. Most traffic jams are caused by haphazard parking or unstrategically set signal countdowns. Traffic issues can be addressed to an extent if the signals are handled manually,” says one mobility expert.
But ask Additional Commissioner (Traffic), R Hithendra and he contends the traffic police cannot be blamed for the traffic gridlocks when there is lack of infrastructure. “We are making an effort to ensure smooth flow of traffic in the city , but the lack of infrastructure is the main culprit here. The traffic congestion is caused because the roads are designed for a specific capacity, and the flow of vehicles is more than they can handle We can regulate the traffic, but the problem will only be addressed if the road capacity is increased,” he emphasises.
Driving on Bengaluru roads? Start an hour early or else...
A techie, Balachandar, who works in a company on M G Road, has to login by 10 am to work. And to make sure he does, he leaves his home in Chamarajpet by around 8.30 or 8.45 am.
"Or else I will end up going late to work and lose half a day’s salary. Being the peak hour, with hundreds competing to reach their workplaces on time, you see people doing all kinds of things, riding on the footpaths and manoeuvering even in the smallest gaps available in the rush hour traffic," he recounts, adding, “On an average, the traffic signals change every 60 to 80 seconds and so even before my turn comes to cross them, they turn red.”
The pile-up on M G Road is quite heavy at the time, he notes. “You can see vehicles piled up upto Bible Society starting from the MG Road junction near Brigade Road. It takes me nearly 15 minutes to cross this junction alone,” he complains. Recalling his college days, when he like other students, waited to speed on their bikes on MG Road, he rues that the time has passed for such small pleasures. "Now, you cannot drive at more than 30 km per hour on the road because of the traffic," he laughs.
Mr Shiva Kumar, a resident of R R Nagar, too recalls that just a decade ago people took pride in driving their new cars or bikes on M G Road, Brigade Road and Commercial Street in the heart of the city. "But now we hardly ever drive ourselves on these roads fearing the traffic. Even to go shopping on Brigade Road and nearby areas, we opt to book a cab. And it takes not less than an hour and a half to get to it from R R Nagar, which is just 15 kms away," he notes sadly, observing ruefully, "In this time we could even reach Mysuru, which is nearly 120 kms away from the city!”
Guest column: Bottlenecks continue to choke city, says MN Sreehari, Traffic expert
While the city has developed by leaps and bounds, its roads have not kept pace. As Bengaluru gradually spread over 800 sq. kms, taking over many villages that once surrounded it, the focus has been on expanding it, but not on improving the roads to match its growth. Even today the city still has the same narrow roads it had many decades ago. When this is the case how can the city hope to cope with its traffic?
Over 95 per cent of its roads are overloaded with vehicles. Going by international standards, one lane can carry only 900 vehicles an hour. But shockingly, Bengaluru's lane capacity is nearly 4,000 and even higher during peak hour traffic.
And while it already has 69 lakh vehicles, on an average 3.5 to 4 lakh vehicles are added to those on the roads every year. Although there are several policies to curb traffic nothing is being done on the ground. The same political will that saw the opening of Indira Canteens in all 198 wards of the city in a few years should be apparent in improving public transport, constructing parking complexes, increasing road tax, parking charges and so on.
The government should implement policies that act as a deterrent to people buying more private vehicles. But what we see today is entirely different.
The city is dotted with several flyovers and many more are in the offing, made of concrete and steel. Constructing flyovers in the city to ease traffic can only be a temporary solution as in the long run it will merely shift traffic from one place to another and over a period of time they will become redundant. The government should instead complete the Metro Rail on a war footing , introduce a Monorail and encourage people to opt for public transport.
Why is Bengaluru so crowded?
- There are 69 lakh vehicles in the city.
- On an average 3,500 vehicles are added to the vehicles on city roads every day and 3.5 to 4 lakh vehicles every year.
- One lane can hold only 900 vehicles per hour, but in Bengaluru, it holds 3,000 to 4,000 vehicles per hour.
- Majority of the roads are radial in the absence of proper plans to develop parallel and perpendicular roads in the city.
