Dedicated bus bays, narrow service roads, nails strewn on Outer Ring Road and a need to follow the rules: these and other issues were raised by readers on Saturday during a web chat on how to ease traffic problems in the city. Urban commute expert Sanjeev Dyamannanavar and traffic expert M. N. Sreehari were part of the discussions.
Mr. Sreehari said that while carpooling was a social behaviour and could not be enforced, it would help if IT companies were distributed across the city instead of being concentrated in Bengaluru East and parts of the South East. "Out of a 1.1 crore population, at any given point of time, 80% of the people are travelling. The buses carry 54 lakh people and the Metro 1.5 to 2 lakh per day. The rest rely on private transport," he pointed out.
On the lack of bus bays, he said, "Every bus stop should have a dedicated bus bay. In particular, this problem happens at junctions as adequate road geometry is not available."
On whether it is valid for private buses to use service roads to avoid traffic on main roads, which happens in Marathahalli, Mr. Sreehari responded that it is legal, but bad practice. "IT companies that hire the buses should discourage this practice," he said.
Commuter behaviour and road rage"In Bengaluru, people talk on their mobile while driving or looking at Google maps, slowing traffic," said Mr. Dyamannanavar, adding that the only solution is traffic police being more stringent on fining such behaviour.
One of the readers, Vivek, put it aptly: "We really need to change our habits before we start complaining about existing infrastructure. A simple ORS can save a baby's life. Why instantly run for a full body check-up?"
