BENGALURU:Steps to decongest the city and improve mobility for Bangaloreans were discussed at length by officials and urban experts on Wednesday.
Inaugurating a workshop on ‘sustainable cities and climate change’ at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Additional Chief Secretary, Urban Development Department, D Satyamurthy said, “De-congesting Bengaluru has to be a major priority as traffic pile-ups are eating into precious time.”
Ravichandar, urban expert and chairman of Feedback Business Consulting Services, said “Unless we fix common issues like governance, planning and execution excellence, we will not get to realise the Smart City vision.”
The city has many smart two-wheeler riders who ride just behind the wheel of a four-wheeler and thereby safely avoid potholes, he said.
R K Mishra, director of Centre for Smart Cities, charged poor governance in Bengaluru as one of the reasons why the city has not made it to the Smart Cities list. “Bengaluru is poorly governed, arrogant and all the cities in the state that have made the list are better governed,” he alleged. The number of public toilets per thousand people in the city is also dismal, he claimed.
Mishra repeatedly stressed that “sewage needs to go by the lake and not through the lake.”
Elaborating on smart corridors, the director said ten arterial roads in the city carry the burden of 70 to 80 per cent of the city’s traffic. Tenders have already been called for to transform Old Madras Road and Old Airport Road into Smart corridors. “Such corridors will have proper road surfaces, footpath, proper drainage and traffic management,” he said.
Pronab Dasgupta, Director of Southern Regional Centre of TERI said, “We live in a globalised village in which territorial jurisdictions do not exist.”
Emissions released in one city will have an impact on the rest, he added.
Calling upon the need to conserve energy consumption, Dasgupta said, “Every bit of energy saved enhances the Thermal Power distribution as it all cumulatively adds up,” he said.