My thought was that Mysore rd and Kanakapura rd extns are mostly through sparsely populated residential areas (lot fewer appartments too) without much industrialization..so its not a candidate for immediate need for a metro line..metro can eventually get there..This is unlike the ORR section which has a dire need for mass PT connectivity..

Bagalur area wich has large land parcels can be developed with the tag 'will be connected by metro'

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Oh please again! It is okay to build a green field line in wilderness where there is no development with 'will be connected by metro' tag with huge financial risks whilst lines in already developing areas is waste of money? Does this not sound like overly biased & needless criticism? One look at vehicles parked & loads to /from Mysore rd terminal & the number of hi-rises coming up on Kanakapura road is enough to debunk what you say like many other things you said previously.

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yes, this line will need 4,000 crores going by some estimations, wonder where BMRCL can get that kind of money from..ofcourse if the wasteful extensions of Mysore road and Kanaapura lines were postponed..maybe something like this could have been accomodated!

But still dont know what the corporate honchos can do..they got the BETL done with their words some years ago..maybe they will pull this off too!

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On the one hand, you say greenfield project past Bagalur is ok, but here you say Mysore road and Kanaapura lines are wasteful extensions when clearly those areas are already developed & will become even more dense soon.

And rasing 4000 crs for BMRC is not a big ask when they are raisning 26,000 crs for ph-2.

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Sri, "fast tracking" of this line is for the press, TV news, blogs & to keep companies on ORR happy. I don't think they will dare to start construction on ORR before the whitefield metro extension has been completed.

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Naveen, if you read my post, I mentioned all three lines (mysore rd/kanakapura rd/airport) need to be done but eventually in the coming years..the roads there can handle traffic for now..however there was a more pressing need for getting it on ORR now, thats all..

Anyways coming back to the above topic of getting alternate reliable PT during construction of metro on ORR or even now, when they are planning/thinking for the line is having reliable bus transport on this line. If the bus route can be planned on a dedicated lane, it will be really goo. Below is a route which can be taken..

For folks who travel from long distances, there could be parking setup temporarily around the agara lake and the bus could take the service road on the orr..

The service road could be made exclusive for public/mass transport and this way we can get priority for the buses which will make them more reliable..

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Non Motorized Transport with pedestrian and cyclist traffic will need to get priority, along with the bus lane. This is because a sizeable population of workers in the ORR area reside around that area (HSR layout/koramangala/Sarjapur rd) and it will be important for them to have usable footpaths and cycle lanes to make the trip to their offices easily.

This will make their commute greaner, faster and healthier..even for the bus users, good footpaths will be a must to make their last mile journery easier and safer..

Building these NMT facilities does not take too much of resources but will go a long way in alleviating the traffic situation in the ORR area and also elsewhere!

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Navin, I agree with Srinidhi. Metro should goto places where traffic is standstill, where travelling has become so painful without much options.

From Kengeri to Nayandanahalli it is not that heavy traffic, so is the Kanakapura Road stretch. Same in the North near BETL. Ofcourse there was an increase in Metro usage after extension to Nagawara, but it could be a modal shift. It is not that they have to struggle in traffic like in Eastern Parts of Bengaluru like Tin Factory, BTM Layout, Silkboard.

I recently attended the seminar on SmartCity Mobility where an Embarq Gentleman was showing a graph of Urban sprawl and where our Metro is planned. It is just not data driven.

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Vasanth,

Metro construction in any city will always lag behind current ground situations by a few years. This is because it takes that long to get traffic data, DPRs, approvals & finances arranged, not to mention the many public objections & their time-consuming resolutions - and this is anywhere in the world, not just in India or Bangalore alone. The lag in Bangalore with its fast paced growth seems even more due to huge spurts in vehicle growth in ORR-east.

Remember that metro isn't like a simple road improvement or flyover project that is localized with small cost of maybe 60-80 crores but a mega project that costs 1000s of crores & involves far more property owners, agencies that have to shift several kms of utilities, govt (both state & central), international financers etc. Clearly BMRC may recommend but it alone cannot take the decision & it is the state govt that decides considering other priorities across the state as funds required are really enormous.

And we know how over the last 3-4 years traffic has picked up on ORR-East. Even two years ago, I was still thinking about BRT on ORR-East but now, I agree it needs metro urgently which GoK itself has fast tracked now.

Anyway, this does not mean that planned, approved and tendered routes under construction need to be stopped midway because a new priority has sprung up somewhere - surely both can go on. A layman might of course not understand any of these things, but we as praja cannot start claiming "poor planning", "misplaced priority", "wasteful" etc, knowing all the above facts well enough.

IT areas were always provided with good roads including an elevated road on Hosur road & lot of air-conditioned buses. If IT folks grid lock roads with their cars, is it any fault of govt or BMRC? Citizens of other areas are more likely to use metro than those in IT areas for sure - there is ample demonstration of this on metro green & purple lines as also road traffic on ORR & Whitefield.

Which is why I don't buy statements like "traffic is less there but more here, so it should have been built here first". Sorry, but I'm surprised that you are even quoting Kengeri-Nayandahalli and Kanakapura road when CTTP had as early as 2007 pointed out that these would require metro extensions along with extensions to BIEC & Whitefield. In fact, even CTTP-2011 had BRT for ORR, no metro.

Embarq & other such agencies might claim "not data driven" but it appears that they have not considered that such data has been changing too very fast in Bangalore. Next, we may have IT parks coming up along Sarjapur road when ORR gets saturated. And maybe traffic will explode there within a span of a few years. If BMRC is building a route on Ballari road or Thanisandra road or through Kathriguppe, should they abandon those? Of course not, they only need to start a new process for a line on Sarjapur road, isn't it? Also, remember that metro is a permanent & complete city network, not some stop gap solution to address immediate problems.

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We will have lot of fun when Metro begins construction on the stretch towards Whitefield.

It might be a good idea to start shuttle trains between BYPL and  WFD atleast during peak hours. SWR, BMTC and WEIPA would need to come together to ensure these trains don't go empty. Otherwise, these shall end up being like the DEMU to Ramanagara.

My brother and his colleague who travel from Kengeri to WFD are often jostling for space on Chennai bound trains or spending money on OLA/ Uber to reach office from BYPL's Metro station.

Till Jan, I had to travel to WFD twice a week on work and it would take me not less than two hours to reach Zuri Hotels from Koramanagala during peak hours. Hail ORR and its ill planned flyovers.

I pity people who live and work on ORR. The never ending construction of flyovers in 2011 frustrated me to such an extent that I ultimately decided to leave Oracle.

I don't think the line between HSRA and YPR shall ever be doubled to run suburban services. There is no awareness about suburban rail in Hosur and politcal considerations also mean we shall never see this line being developed. GOK may double the line till Anekal in the future. Beyond that it is TN's call.

The stations on this stretch are very poorly connected with no proper roads, street light and there is no connectivity by buses. Reminds me of Hafizpet station in Hyderabad. 

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