Lack of connectivity, autos over-charging, cabs cancelling at the last minute: travelling in the city is by no means an easy task. Though Namma Metro has provided the much needed relief, there is a long way to go in terms of bettering our transportation system.
Our experts - Ashwin Mahesh and Dr. Ashish Verma - will talk about what can be done to make travel in the city smoother, easier and safer.
Ashwin Mahesh is an urban expert and Ashish Verma is, professor, Department of Civil Engineering, IISc.
Girish: Travelling in the city has become a big task? What should be done to strengthen the public transport system?
Ashwin Mahesh: About a year and a half ago, I helped the government to put together a Decongestion Report focusing on public transport and sustainable mobility.
Satyaprakash: I remember some 10 years ago one comprehensive transport plan was done. A lot of promises in that: BRTS, Metro, Suburban rail, larger bus systems. Mono rail, LRTS. Any update on that? Or, is it just like most things in the city: just castles in the air?
Ashok kumar: more suburban trains needed
Ashish Verma: For it to be attractive for people, we need to assign priority to public transport in various conventional and innovative ways.
Ashwin Mahesh: First we have to get the principles right, then we can make a plan.
Latha: @Ashwin What were the findings of the decongestation report?
Ashwin Mahesh: The key principles are (a) priority of investments in public transport, (b) promoting all modes - including walking and cycling and (c) a network approach to the city and larger region, rather than a project-wise approach.
Ashish Verma: The practical issue is, the projects focused on long term sustainability does not fall within the time-frame of one elected government of 5 years.
Deepak: what is your opinion on steel flyover on ballari road?
Ashwin Mahesh: Steal flyover a pathetic idea. Out of the 1800 crores, 400 crores is for kickbacks alone - everyone knows this. And the same 1800 crores can instead be used to buy 4000 buses. Think about that - that will have a carrying capacity of 35 lakh more people. Compared to a flyover covering 6 km
Dr. Ashish Verma: Flyovers/under-passes are solutions with very short term life and at the same time carry huge cost
Deepak: Shouldn't we developing alternate roads to airport and promote public transport instead of private transport
Ashwin Mahesh: we should, deepak, but there is no political will for that.
Karthik: But there is no enough road for all those buses to be on roads.
Ashish Verma: Considering the personal capacity per unit time added per unit of investment mono-rail and a in-feasible solution for dense Indian cities, including Bangalore
Saai Arun: Sorry if I am rude. Bangalore itself is an un-planned city except in parts. Plan over an unplanned city is a joke. As more plans get in, it invites more complications as well. So the task of fixing is close to impossible unless the vehicle count in the city is reduced.
Kodandaiah Cariappa: Metro is a very expensive option for a relatively poor country. Bangalore is putting all its eggs in this basket itself. Is it a wise thing to do? To focus on 200-km of metro instead of bus, suburban rail and other infra.
Ashwin Mahesh: If we add buses, that itself will make space for them, by removing private vehicles from the road. That has been the experience globally.
Ashwin Mahesh: I never said that buses alone are the solution. But they are surely part of the solution
Mohita Rao Choudhry: 6000 buses for crores of people. Is this enough? Can I spend 100 rupees instead of 15 rupees every time I have to step out?
Ashwin Mahesh: Mohita, the global average for a well functioning bus system is 1200 buses per 1 million of population.
Karthik: Following a strict lane discipline, would reduce the traffic to great extent.
Ashwin Mahesh: Route rationalisation is under way at BMTC. Current trunk and feeder system is a big improvement over the past.
Guest: Decrease cars/large vehicles driven by just single person by providing incentives unless it serves public like taxi. Bangalore roads cant be widened. Motivate people to follow lane discipline and penalize people heavily when they violate traffic rules.
Ashish Verma: We need priority to buses to make them attractive mobility option.
Ashwin Mahesh: Today, the attractiveness of satellite towns is low - for employment, especially. If we improve that, more people will live throughout the region, rather than just the city.
Guest: Bangalore was not designed for such an influx of population. Surrounding areas to Bangalore must be planned well ahead keeping 20 years future in mind. I doubt any of those visions are being considered.
Vivek : Why isn't odd / even registration plate system implemented in Bangalore?
Ashwin Mahesh: There are much more effective interventions possible than odd-even.
Ashish Verma: Yes, we need many complimentary policy measures besides infrastructure improvements in public transport and NMT to get the desired results
Ashwin Mahesh: Our Planning department has simply ceased to function.
Guest: I visited banglore last week. Too much traffic. Public transport is good but not enoguh to carry all the people. Also most of people having car are travelling alone. We should encourage them to use public transport or at least bike.
Ashish Verma: To get political class to act on sustainable mobility projects, we need to make them see their constituency in public transport and NMT users.
Kavita: What about autos not going by the meter and over charging? how can this issue be addressed?
Maheswara Hungund: I see everywhere that autorickshaw drivers are being targetted for over-charging. As someone who knows many of these drivers personally, I think it is unfair. These are people who live essentially in poverty, and have to slog through the day for a pay. The government hikes in their fare are not correspondent to the standard of living. Why target them, but allow Ola and Uber to charge whateevr excess fare they want? Why have double standards in this? Is this class-based discrimination?
Guest: Roads are not that hard to maintain if its tarred/cemented well leaving opening for sewage and water projects. It makes me feel sad to see a perfect road being dug for giving water/sewage connection to a new house and then no one bothers to put the road back in a decent condition.
Ashwin Mahesh: Yes, good design matters. That's why I think TenderSURE is a good idea
Ashish Verma: With respect to pushing sustainable mobility projects, we we start measuring the effectiveness in terms of amount of capacity (moving people) added per unit of investment then everyone will have clear picture what is good and sustainable and what is not.
Ashish Verma: Indeed metro projects in construction should be completed on highest priority. The earlier the corridors become operational the better it will be for the city
Guest: do we know how many people really travel daily and do we have an idea of the movement pattern for average population? How can we design a system if we dont know the traffic movement source/destination. I am sure a pattern will emerge that might allow us to provide better connectivity either by building bridges or by providing incentivized public transport.
Pranav: What are the benefits to users and data analysts from the ITS project? Can Mr. Mahesh explain what is being done with the data from BMTC?
Ashwin Mahesh: Data from BMTC is being used to understand the levels of service in different neighbourhoods and ratonalise supply
Ashish Verma: Yes, Bangalore city has data about the daily activity travel patterns. Our planning agencies do have such data with them.
Bus user: Should bangalore adopt private bus system as well as government? I know the cons are plenty in getting private buses: regulation, safety and their tendency to operate only in profitable route. But I am sure a good model can be evolved. As an aside, what happened to ZIPgo and their efforts at starting app-based buses? Just wanted your opinion....
Ashwin Mahesh: However, there is a massive deficit of buses to begin with. Therefore, only limited rationalisation of the fleet is possible. When we add more buses, the rationalisation will be more effective.
Ashwin Mahesh: supply shapes demand too. When we added 65 new buses on the Hosur Road Big10 route, 15,000 people shifted to bus from other modes.
GS: Might a congestion zone be created in certain particularly busy parts of Bengaluru, where private cars were taxed for travelling, improve the cities bottleneck problems by encouraging people to use public transport inside those areas?
Ashish Verma: When Yes, congestion pricing is one such complimentary policy to bring right balance, as I mentioned earlier.
Ashwin Mahesh: Congestion pricing in high density districts can help. But even before that, we can take the simple step of making all parking priced.
Sahil: why dont we have multistory government parking in problematic areas
Pratik: Why dont we popularize the humble cycle? At least for short distance travelling. So many benefits: health, pollution, congestion. But, lanes must be created for cyclists to ride in safety
Ashwin Mahesh: cycle lanes can easily be built around lakes. If we build around all major lakes, then we can inter connect them. We need a integrated master plan to encourage cycling. The peace-meal approaches would certainly not work.
Ashish Verma: IISc Bangalore: We should also look at ways to integrate cycling with public transport to facilitate their use for long distance trips as well.
Guest: We should also look towards building skyscrapers that will have have say 6 floors for parking. The only way we can support the population influx is by moving towards the sky as there is no space to widen on the ground.
Ashwin Mahesh: Elsewhere in the world, there are skyscrapers with NO parking. The trick is to make people come to the buildings in public transport, taxis, etc. rather than their private cars.
Roshan: What about rash driving, especially by buses? travel has become dangerous because of this
Ashish Verma: Our driver licensing system has to be more comprehensive and holistic to improve the menace of rash driving.
Ashwin Mahesh: We need a City Street Design Manual - some progress is happening in this. That will make all roads have similar and integrated design. And it will also have a std way of integrating different utilities - power ,water, cables, signals, etc. All major cities have this.
Reader But such project/manuals should also look at environment aspect. We have had so many reports of trees being cut for TenderSURE...
Ashish Verma: It is even more important due to growing effects of climate change.
Ashish Verma: Integrated sustainable mobility solution is the only way for Bangalore to survive as a liveable city. We need good combination of policies and infrastructure measures for that
