BENGALURU: The unearthing of a vintage map dating back to the early 1960s which proposed a Ring Rail (Circular Rail) around Bengaluru City to facilitate transportation went viral on Monday with many ruing the great opportunity the City had missed by not implementing it.
Multiple respondents felt the present traffic jams would have been unheard of if some attention had been paid to it.
Put up on a Facebook group, ‘Bangalore - Photos from a Bygone Age’, the map was later posted on X by multiple handles and generated much debate all day.
The proposed network forms a circle along this route: Bengaluru City Station-Bengaluru Cantonment-Bengaluru East-Jeevanahalli-Old Madras Road (where there would be a diversion with a railway station), Binnamangala, Domlur-Koramangala, Central Junction where the Broad Guage Line from Salem meets, Jayanagar, Banashankari, Avalahalli, Mysuru Road and the circle ends at City station.
Sanjeev P Dyamannavar, urban transportation expert, called it a “lost opportunity” that cannot be even dreamt of now.
“Even if this plan had been implemented, say 15 or 20 years ago, we had a chance. Now, land acquisition is the biggest problem. The only chance we have now is if a circle can built along the proposed Bengaluru Business Corridor (Peripheral Ring Road) project.”
Former MP M V Rajeev Gowda, a staunch advocate of public transport, said that no one could be blamed for not taking up the proposal.
“I grew up in the City and we never had traffic jams that time. The City was sparsely populated then. Hence, this would not have been prioritised then.”
Gowda added that the Railways was not very open to the idea of an intra-city transportation like the Suburban Rail. “Their focus was only on inter-city and so the suburban rail project was very slow. However, it is heartening to see much importance given to the project under a special agency, K-RIDE and dedicated network being created for it. The progress is now much better than what I expected.”
Meanwhile, users on X lamented the non-implementation of the proposal. “If implemented on ground, today we could proudly compete with Mumbai and Chennai by having our own local train network, but we are stuck in long traffic jams today,” responded a user Pankaj Singh.
Popular handle @Bnglrweatherman who put out the map on X said, “If they would have gone ahead with it, today our city wouldn’t have been a bottleneck for traffic jams. What a great miss.” Ashish Mahendra posted, “Jayanagar and Banashankari had a station. Wow, it would have been the best of all! Metro would have been out of the window.”