Bangalore Traffic

Will Constructing Flyovers, making roads one way solve Traffic problem?
Well, this looks like a question to be posted in Times of India opinion poll. The Answer to this question would be both YES and NO.

Bangalore, capital city of Karnataka has manifested itself from Garden city to a Silicon city. This is a city that has no boundaries for growth in all aspects: Area, Population, Intellect, Trend, Vehicles… in short A to Z. As a result of this boundless growth, a need is seen for a corresponding all round development, such as development of Landscape, Roads, Transportation, Standard of living to name a few.

With this the questions that arise are:
Ø Can Development be synchronous with Growth?
Ø What are the ill effects when there is a gap between Growth and Development?
Ø How do we eliminate such ill effects?
Ø Who is responsible to bring in synchronization between the two?

Bangalore that has seen boundless growth has also seen the various measures taken up by Government and Non Government organizations to satisfy the need of Overall Development.

In this article I would like to consider only one major problem/challenge faced by each and every person residing in the city, TRAFFIC.

Development is an opportunity, when not achieved turns out to be a Problem. This is just the converse of saying “Problems are actually not problems, they are opportunities in disguise”.

One of major developments seen to fight traffic menace in city is, increased number of Flyovers and Roads being made One Way. This has proved successful to certain extent and hence the answer to the question is YES, however they have failed to ELIMINATE the problem. This just makes the problem disappear temporarily. Hence the answer is NO as well. In fact, such measures are adding to the problem.

Let us look at few scientific steps that can be taken to achieve overall development at a lower cost as compared against unscientific steps.

Bandwidth cannot be continuously increased. Restrict Traffic instead, by creating Zones:
Ø The city can be divided into FIVE Zones East, West, North, South and Central.
Ø Allocate Public and Commercial transport vehicles corresponding to Population density of each Zone. Confine these vehicles to movements Intra-Zone
Ø Provide Few Inter Zone Transports.
Ø Decentralize Outstation Transports to an entry/exit to the nearest Zone.

This ensures:
Confined number of vehicles within Zone.
Uniform distribution of Public and commercial transportation, hence better availability at the hour of need.
Reduced number of vehicles (outstation transports) entering major parts of city

Create/Develop alternate Paths:
Ø Identify the bottle neck area
Ø Identify possible alternate routes to reduce congestion
Ø Make use of LMVs if alternate routes are not wide enough to allow HTVs

Put a Cap on the number of vehicles to be registered for a year:
It is necessary to put a cap on the number of vehicles a city is prepared to bear for a year, similar to issuance of Visa, a country can welcome foreigners.

Create Road dividers, Fill Pot holes and remove unwanted Speed(back) breakers:
Ø Along with providing safety, Road dividers also ensure vehicles from one side of the road do not take up the entire space.
Ø Removal of unwanted speed breakers smoothen Traffic flow.
Ø Filling Pot holes avoids lot of accidents.

Tow vehicles to move Broken down vehicles:
It is not enough if Tow vehicles are used only to tow away vehicles parked in No Parking zone, the better usage of Tow vehicles lie in towing of broken down vehicles causing congestion.

Move Bus stops, Parking, Taxi/Auto stands to middle of the road or create a Bay :
The scenario seen in city is Bus stops are at the beginning or end of road which cause congestion. Moving these to middle of roads or creating a bay will ease the traffic flow.


Educate Public on Best Driving/Riding Practice:
There is a possibility of general public not being aware of the wrongs they are doing while driving/riding vehicles. Video picture of wrongs and rights displayed on Television network, Bus stations, Railway stations and other public places will help people learn right way of driving or riding. This will be a major (75%) contributing factor for the solution proposed.

With all the mentioned above measures, betterment can be achieved with existing resources and minimal cost.