STUP consultants has put together a DPR date 27 May 2015 for the flyover.  They have shown photographs of the various existing junctions and presented traffci data.  Reading through the data, here are few points that I see.

The existing road is an extremely busy road, currently designed to be signal free.  It attracts a lot of traffic from the surrounding areas as it is a quick way to reach the ring road at Hebbal and connect to Yeshwanthpur.  From personal experience, I have used the road many times in the past few years when going from East Bangalore to the city.  It is easier for me to go along the ring road and then use this road for a lot of North Bangalore locations.  Even to reach Yeashwanthpur, given the state of the incomplete rail overbridge and the congested narrow ORR section near Jalahalli, it is easier to go via Mekhri circle.  New BEL road is also very commercial and busy, so that is also not a debatable opton.

There are bottlenecks and poorly designed flyovers on the existing road.  The magic box, the bottle neck at Windsor manor, the bizarre junction flyovers further ahead are all well known to all Bangaloreans..

Section 5.1.4 caught my interest.  It gives traffic composition at various junctions: 

Location

BMTC Bus

LCV passenger (Tempo Traveler?)

Cars (Private and Taxi)

Auto (pass)

Two Wheeler

Basaveshwara Cir

0.36%

0.36%

42.53%

13.44%

40.97%

Millers Road

0.48%

0.44%

38.77%

5.38%

52.55%

Highgrounds

1.49% - see note

1.33% - see note

51.15%

9.48%

36.06%

Kumarakrupa

2.31% - see note

2.37% see note

48.89%

9.62%

36.37%

Cauvery

3.09%

2.73% - see note

47.53%

8.40%

37.65%

Mekhri Circle

0.79%

0.73%

47.88%

5.89%

37.29%

Sanjay Nagar

3.43% - see note

1.40% - see note

39.87%

14.95%

39.93%

CBI

2.61% - see note

3.97% - see note

52.76%

7.40%

32.18%

Hebbal

2.92% - see note

5.17% - see note

44.75%

3.89%

39.99%

Note: Only some junction counts distinguished between BMTC and other buses and similarly between passenger LCVs and other LCVs and between passenger autos and others

Table 5.3 summarizes the data for the whole day as a detailed split up as well.

From the above data and assuming counts at junctions are accurate, less than 1% of all traffic is BMTC bus, and maybe another 1% is Force Tempo type vehicles.   Cars and two wheelers are major users of this road.

Next question is where are people coming from and where are they going to and what is the tip length? The report answers that as well

From table 5.6, for all three junctions, High Grounds, Mekhri Circle and Hebbal, the report has 55-70% of people traveling for work, business, office etc.  Airport Drop Pickup is 3% at high grounds, 17% at Mekhri circle and 6.3% at Hebbal.  I am inclined to say the airport drop is an anamolous data at Mekhri circle because if you see from table 5.8 that at high ground and Mekhri circle, close to half the traffic is less than 5 km and 35% of traffic is less than 10 km.  Long distance traffic is very less, which means that the airport data at Mekhri circle must be wrong.  Hebbal has a larger percentage of longer distance traffic with nearly half in the 6-10 km range and 25% in less than 5 km and a slightly larger 12% in the 11-15km range. Hebbal has 12.6% in the more than 20km range, which is natural since it is sort of a gateway to the airport.

Tbale 5.7 says that majority of the traffic is daily or alternate day traffic.

Table 5.9 makes clear where traffic is coming from.  Most of it is traffic from the core areas of the city. At high grounds, traffic is from Majestic, Gandhi Nagar,  Vishana Soudha, Shivaji Nagar, Vasanth Nagar, the Pete area and from North Bangalore - Sahakar Nagar, Vidyaranyapura and Yelahanka. 

At Hebbal, traffic is from Majestic, Gandhi Nagar, Vishana Soudha,  Sahakar Nagar, Vidyaranyapura and Yelahanka, Jalahalli east, BEL, Kodigehalli etc.

 

What the data appears to indicate is that majority of the traffic is in private vehicles, very little bus traffic.  Traffic is local traffic and traffic from the Northern suburbs to the central part of the city.  Airport traffic is a very small component.  

THe questions the data throws at us are

A: Wouldn't more Public Transport and buses be a better option rather than adding more lanes for cars to fill?

B. Given the short distance nature of traffic in the data (0-5km and 5-10km), will the through transit using the flyover really solve the problem?

C. Shouldn't the focus be to improve accessibility to northern corridors through public transport options?

 

 

 

 

• favorite 43 Likes
• | login or register to post comments

@Sanjay,

I just started reading the document. A lot is left to be read. Will try to compelte it in coming days. The initial observations says it all.

Page 1, Sec 1.1, 2nd Para,

"...Rising  traffic  congestion  is  one  of  the  key  issues in  the  City.  In  the  recent  past  there been  an  appreciable  increase  in  the  volume  of  perso nalized  and  public  modes  of  vehicles plying  on  city  roads. The  number  of registered vehicles  in  Bangalore  has  increased  rapidly from 400,000 (1987) to 3.9 million (2011). The number of 2-wheelers in particular constitutesto  nearly  74  %  of  the  total  vehicles.  The  vehicular growth  rate  in  Bangalore  city  between 1980 and 2001 is about 11%. In view of above, there  has been a huge increase in volume of
vehicles on the city roads. The lack of need based public transport system with mass rapid transport  system  like  metro  train  still  under  const ruction  stage  amplified  traffic  congestion problem. Hence, there is an urgent necessity to dec ongest the over congested intersections..."

If the diagnosis is that congestion is due to lack of PT/Mass Transit system, then why build something which doesn't solve the problem.

Utter disgusting.

• favorite 44 Likes
• | login or register to post comments

Another gem,

"...Hence, the other option for increase in capacity is to review provision of gradeseparator for through traffic (between Highgroundsjunction and Hebbal). This will reducetraffic congestion at surface level and signal timeat junctions..."

• favorite 42 Likes
• | login or register to post comments

Hope GOK sticks to the decision of no Steel Fly over

• favorite 32 Likes
• | login or register to post comments