One of the major issues plaguing Bengaluru is its growth. The city has grown outwardly, radially, circumferentially and haphazardly. This has led to an increase in population and number of vehicles but the roads have remained the same.
Due to some or the other issue, be it litigation or related to compensation, the roads have just not been widened. Due to the IT boom as well, many people from other parts of the country and the world have migrated to Bengaluru in search of jobs or to expand their business here.
Earlier, Bengaluru used to be a beautiful city, one where people wore sweaters in summer too. But now temperatures have been soaring and water bodies have either sunk or fallen prey to elimination for a construction site. Another problem we face is that road infrastructure, which belongs to the government, has not grown at all. We have about 15,000 km length of road and 85 lakh vehicles.
This leads to about 45,000 notorious junctions in the city, neither of which have been planned or designed, but rather have just formed on their own. This is unscientific. If they were well-planned, traffic bottlenecks and delays could have been eliminated.
Solution: A vehicle actuated or activated signal system could clear clear traffic pile up. This system automatically reads the number of vehicles in queue and accordingly allocates time to clear the traffic. So, if there are no vehicles, there’s lesser time allocated. Parking on both sides of the road is another issue and reduces one-third or two-third road capacity.
Our roads are already narrow. Currently, this is happening right under BBMP’s nose and they need to clear out the parking on both sides. Traffic police officials too need to book such cases because roads are meant for traffic, not for parking and this vehicular pile up needs to be cleared out.
Additionally, we also need to follow the norms laid out by Indian Roads Congress, which state that there should be at least 30 metres distance between a junction and bus stop or parking lot.
(As told to Simran Ahuja)