Your first experience on the city’s roads may have been trouble navigating the maze of one-ways. Bengaluru is also a constant subject of ridicule for its one-ways.
“The city’s one-way system drove me nuts. As a newcomer, I missed numerous client meetings after I missed a right and then had to do a full circle through one-ways to get to my destination. Adding fuel to the fire is the bottlenecks,” said Ashok Boopalan, a 33-year-old IT graduate and aspiring entrepreneur from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. After staying for nearly one year in the city, he is ‘somewhat comfortable’ in Kammanahalli where he lives, but not the rest of the city.
It is not just newbies. Even long-time Bengalureans are hassled. “The time spent on roads due to one-ways and numerous traffic signals is crazy,” says interior designer Rizwan Ahmed who lives in Begur. “To go from one place to another in the traffic is maddening and it would help if some one-ways are restored as two-way roads.”
However, police defend the one-ways. “Every one-way is an outcome of a study and a trial run by a team of experts from the Bengaluru Traffic Police.
The study takes into account various factors like traffic flow, vehicles, pedestrian movement, history of accidents, educational institutions on the stretch and primarily, alternative roads for traffic diversion,” says a senior officer who is part of the Bengaluru Traffic Police planning team.
