cant find my original drawing which had left slip lanes and ped crossing design. for now, this image from wiki has to do. it shows left turn lanes for right side traffic(for us it would be right turn lane). the area in red should be concreted.

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blrsri, bingo!!! i have been sitting on these slides for a while now. your post prompted me to action. this discusses bus stops, but applies to junctions also. see these. gimme some time i'll post your idea too.

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actually, even if all the metro,mono etc come upp the issue you raise still needs to be resolved. #1. increase manpower. #2. improve junction geometry and design. the question is do they have any guidelines or set of specifications even designed? right now the only working definition seems to be all intersections should have roads. :) how is it going to work? if a junction sees more than X vehicles/hour then this should be the design, if it sees more than Y vehicles/hour then this should be the design. i thought CTTP would address these types of issues too. It is just a general prescriptive document only. no details as such. one detail i saw way 6.75 meter 3 lane row for non-bus type of traffic. thats about 7 feet per lane. which i think is a good suggestion. but don't know if it is binding. if you have access to it, can you look at what IRC says about this? meanwhile here are some examples of others think about this problem. intersection design - texas intersection design - massachussets intersection design - florida you can look at TRB website for more detailed guides... here are some synopsis... http://rns.trb.org/dproject.asp?n=12658 http://rns.trb.org/dproject.asp?n=13450 (i have exact documents downloaded somewhere on my hard disk, but cannot find web links to them now.)

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thats exactly what was also on my mind sir! only if we can put this across to the right ppl!! Also there was a talk of bus bays being made.. http://bangalore.praja.in/blog/naveen/2007/11/19/cttp-bangalore-still-some-weaknesses#comment-1035 It would be wonderful if they can take a cue from your post of even bus bays being concretized as you show in the pictures

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Very good info TS. Here in Bangalore we have lot of light poles correctly at the corners and we do have roads crossing each other at 45 degrees (example is Kattriguppe Main Road) - very strange - Lot of things to be learnt from other developed nations.

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good points Vasanth, and good stats Tarle. There is a nice write-up by Swati Ramanathan that talks similar things:Cities at cross roads

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one observation that we make at junctions is that the tar road will be in a very bad shape in most places/junctions..this, I think, is probably due to heavy braking and poor laying of the road! It is said that concrete roads, though high initial cost of laying, is stable for a long time and does not giveaway like tar..we cannot make all roads in concrete but how about just building intersections with concrete? This will help smooth flow of traffic when it hits the junction!

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Mark Tully (retired BBC Correspondent) wrote : “ The great cities of Asia during the end of the 19th century (1900) were Calcutta, Mumbai & Delhi. These cities were the first to have proper drainage systems, piped water supply, electricity, trains & trams for commuters & good roads. However, during the end of the 20th century (2000), the best cities in Asia are Osaka, Singapore & Hong-Kong. Calcutta, Mumbai & Delhi are some of the worst cities in Asia “. Present day Indian Cities are unique in their inefficiency & cannot perhaps be compared with US, Singapore, Hong-Kong, Chinese or even Vietnamese cities. The gigantic population & excessive poverty coupled with a democratic system that gives them freedom to move about, protection under law, subsidies & a voice that can be heard has lead a large section of the populace to low ethical standards & greed. Illegal or unethical acts for personal gain, such as evading taxes, encroachment, protesting for the slightest of inconveniences or costs, bribing officials, building violations, etc. is common & widespread as punishments are either condoned or only for the convicted, which again is a long process that can also be manipulated. Various personnel & staff within the government machinery, taking full advantage of these conditions, has ‘officials’ at every level who will ‘help’ the defaulter for a sum. After all, why should they be left out & stay poor ? In the backdrop of such a loose & flexible system that views petty crime as routine & allows violators to get away unnoticed or without ruffling too many feathers, chaos on our roads follows naturally when there are too many users & is not surprising. The primary reason for chaos on roads in our city, & probably all Indian cities is obviously that these road networks were never planned for the very large volumes of traffic that use them today & therefore have too many intersections. Very slow moving push carts, tractors, scores of two wheelers, very fast moving private cars, commercial vehicles, large private buses & public transport buses all jostle for space on the same road, without any segregation. This excessive mix of vehicles with different priorities & goals for each type of traffic results in very poor efficiency of the overall movement of traffic. Efforts by authorities, such as marking dedicated lanes for auto-rickshaws on some roads have had little impact on streamlining the flow of traffic & conditions continue to deteriorate as several more vehicles are added each day to the traffic. AA) Poor Planning & Lapses by Authorities : 1) No serious efforts are being made to find a solution to fund development & maintenance of road infrastructure within cities. Private sector initiatives, such as BMIC have been caught up in the battle between political parties. Road on stilts along Hosur road to EC has progressed through PPP, but this is mainly due to assured income through tolls as the class of users expected are those that will willingly pay for the convenience. Surprisingly, at the central government level, highway projects (golden quadrilateral, NS & EW corridors) are progressing well, though, through various modes of funding, including private sector & loans from WB & ADB, etc.. Tolled highways have been a success, probably because the condition of these roads were so bad that this alternative, with some cost, has been welcomed since there were no other alternatives. A similar ‘revolution’ may be what is needed to find capital to maintain city roads. 2) Very high unanticipated growth rates have resulted in excessive traffic. Regular & routine investments that were being made thus far are too meager to cope with increases in traffic volumes. Much more is clearly required. Various political parties hesitate to seriously rope in private sector for fear of becoming unpopular since road tolls & other indirect charges would commence. The stalemate continues as road infrastructure deteriorates, unlike in other countries where infrastructure is developed mostly by private sector investment or through loans & recovered from road users through various means. 3) Disincentives for road use are almost non-existent & even parking is not being charged for in many cases. This makes the situation worse than it is as people begin to believe that government property is everybody’s for the taking. 4) Timely interventions, investments or alternatives (such as an efficient Metro system or an efficient Rapid bus system) were never seriously pursued in the past & continue to languish due to the mundane nature of our decision making & financing abilities as also due to poor commitment shown by authorities. Additional vehicle users that may have otherwise used such transit systems now add to the load on the road network. 5) Maintenance work & fault repairing of utilities such as water pipes, electricity, telephone lines & drainage frequently interrupt traffic movements along many roads as these systems are old & are prone to failures – investments to upgrade these utilities have not been enough either. 6) Use of available funds for road infrastructure is inefficient & do not reach areas which require priority or are urgent. 7) Sidewalks, or what's left of them are uneven, too narrow, not continuous & in many cases are unsafe due to obstructions, debris, etc.. As a result, pedestrians spill over & add to the mixture of road users, particularly in congested areas, slowing down movement of traffic. BB) Poor Ethics of the Populace : 8) Poor road manners of vehicle users, such as risky overtaking from the wrong side or trying to overtake with too little room, not allowing enough room for vehicles in the opposite direction (even when stopped at signals), excessive & unwarranted use of horn, all add to the prevailing chaos & slows down traffic further. 9) Improving efficiency of traffic flows by blocking off some of the unnecessary openings along road dividers has not been possible due to protests by locals. This has added to road inefficiencies as volumes eventually grow larger & what starts off as a small obstruction becomes a regular signaled intersection that affects free flow of mainstream traffic. 10) Space on roads & sidewalks is taken up by hawkers & petty shops for their business activities, such as displaying wares & loading /unloading supplies, etc. causing obstructions to free movement of pedestrians & traffic. 11) Many intersections are blocked by parked auto-rickshaws that use them as vantage points to find customers. This again effects traffic movements. Even if they are chased off by a cop, they return to the same spot & enforcement is very difficult as a cop cannot be dedicated for each such spot permanently. 12) On some roads, space is taken up by cattle & stray animals as there are no measures to keep them out of traffic lanes. If restrictions, such as barricades are put in place, they are surreptitiously removed by those affected. 13) Though people, by & large demand improvements, road /fly-over /bridge tolls or other means of funding are hard to enforce within cities as usually, there are protests against such costs as taxi-drivers, auto-rickshaws & many economically poorer groups believe that it should be made available to them freely. 14) All types of litter, wastes & garbage is disposed off by people along the sides of roads which eventually end up in storm drains or gutters that are very difficult to clean & maintain each rainy season. Many remain unclean & result in water-logging of roads that lead to road surface damage & potholes. This affects road safety & traffic movement. Thus, funds have to be diverted to this almost routine activity, which is avoidable. 15) Parking along roadsides, No parking zones & Sidewalks is routine & effects traffic flow, either directly or indirectly. This is a big menace that can only be controlled by reducing the no. of vehicles. Repeated offenders are common. 16) Evasion of traffic fines & property taxes by bribing &/or under valuing of property that drains state finances. 17) Jumping signals & going through red even as other more patient vehicles stand by for the green is now quite frequent. Arguments with traffic cops are routine, even when the cop is doing his duty correctly & questioning the violator. Solutions to reduce chaos on roads seem very hard as discipline is very poor on all sides. BRTS system, though very difficult to implement amidst this confusion, is possibly the only ray of hope. To start with, if a wide road (say, PRR) is planned with BRTS in mind, & with a segregated pair of bus-ways & all necessary infrastructure in place to prevent intrusion by other traffic, & is successfully demonstrated as dependable & for the benefit of all, acceptance of a road system with lanes by general public may be enough to instill some sense of road discipline, but this is easier said than done.

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In my opionion, the root cause of this mess is in our so called education system and not in our democratic setup. We tend to product individual brilliance (and that too possibly inspite of the system) but collective stupidity. I don't know how many schools cover things like a. respect for others and their time b. standing in queues and waiting for your turn c. honesty even when no one is watching d. safety and its importance. e. similar topics on civic sense. All that we have been emphasizing over the last 60 years has been transferring words from books into the brain without understanding the significance of these words. Worse what the children see from their parents is a brazen disrespect for the law and its enforcers. The basic operating principle is "I will respect the law and the rules when it is convenient for me to do so". My hypothesis is that even if every road in Bangalore was 10 lanes wide, there would be 10 lanes of chaos because we do not know how to live in society. For us driving means pressing the accelerator and brakes, changing the gears and steering. Of course with one hand on the horn all the time. Co-existing with others on the road is not considered a priority - just watch our behaviour at a level crossing. For me the place to start is in the schools. Else the sins of our generation will continue. Srivathsa

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I was in a training on conflict management the other day and the same thought came from it.. our education system only teaches us to be on the competetive edge..crab in a well..'if I am not going up, let others not go up either..eventually it hurts all!

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Thanks Srivathsa - & noted. While you do have a point in blaming the education system that does not focus greatly on civic issues, it may be worth considering how many of those that drive vehicles on our roads actually reach upto even 7th std, or ever went to school at all beyond their 2nd or 3rd stds. Auto drivers, bus & truck drivers, a large proportion of two-wheeler drivers & all those drivers on Tata Sumos & Indicas with yellow boards are the biggest nuisance - all mostly paid drivers who drive for a living. In most countries, such people are not very educated either (eg. long haul truck drivers in USA /Canada), but learn & follow the systems in place on roads. In our cities, the system in place is only to intrude & bulldoze onto other vehicles' road space & grab it anyway possible, which new drivers also follow. Road manners are better with owner driven vehicles, particularly cars, though since they compete with paid drivers, there are instances of road rage & violations. There were suggestions earlier that one would need a 10th std pass for issue of a driver's license, but this will not work as drivers are a low income group without much education & if this were to be done, there is bound to be a hue & cry as their livelihood will be seriously effected. Thus, the soultion is only to improve the position on the street step by step with improved road conditions, whilst educating them to follow road rules, & also introduce very stiff penalties for violations, particularly repeat offenders. Monitoring is most essential, but our cops have proved most incompetent. Mumbai's cops were initially given targets - each cop was to fine /penalise a certain no. of vehicles each month, & their monitoring system improved automatically & is today perhaps the best in the country. In Bangalore, where road vioaltions are alarming now, but cops have not reponded with more severe measures to control the menace & even permit violators to argue & contest them on many occassions.

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Its a good one Naveen, you should post your list of 17 items as a separate blog item.

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Agree with Naveen that education is a long term action plan. But the sooner we start the better. My point was that even people who live in fancy apartments and drive fancy cars behave just as badly on the roads. Come to JP Nagar side and you can see it for yourself. I have had a man wave his fist at me and he was probably an executive in some big company and that was because I did not give way at once. I have resolved never to jump a light even if the person behind me honks his head off. Giving into bullies means giving up. I also rarely use the horn - maybe once in about a week. And never at lights or in slowmoving traffic or if someone is waiting in front of me trying to turn, etc. Right now enforcement is the key. If the police is short staffed, prioritize the areas they will enforce and be brutal. Carry self defence if necessary so that no one pushes them around. Try messing around with a cop in the US or Singapore. Bombay is a mixed bag. Downtown is good. Suburbs is bad. At 8:00 a.m. they jump lights in Andheri, Juhu, etc. I have seen it for myself. Srivathsa

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Srivathsa is right. Even nicely dressed executives driving a posh car also do lot of traffic violations. Only thing preventing to be much better than others is to prevent the damage to their car. It is not so with older cars. It is the increase in number of cars which is causing a major traffic bottleneck. I see lot of people using Innova, Scorpio and Tata safari for a single person in the heart of the city such as Bannerghatta road where occupancy of people to vehicle ratio is the key. Second thing is that they need large space to take a turn causing blockage to other vehicles - U turn on the Bannerghatta Road near Sagar Apollo Hospital is a perfect example for this. Coming to parking space, they occupy almost the space of six 2 wheelers. Lot of Joy drivers using cars on the road especially on the weekends after the weekend parties, are resulting in major accidents. Bangalore-Mysore highway, NICE road, Koramangala Inner ring road and Parts of Ring Road have become car driver's race tracks. A car hitting a 2 wheeler or a pedestrain will result in severe injury and loss of life of the person being hit, while the car driver is not severly hurt which is a major damage compared to a 2 wheeler hitting a 2 wheeler / 2 wheeler hitting a pedestrain. Even the number of 2 wheelers hitting other 2 wheelers is very less since the area of the vehicle is smaller and easily manoevurable compared to a car. At the end, car drivers speak as if they are the most honest on the road and using best transport and all others are culprits!!. Major problem in India is the absence of speed checking and fining the car owners since the police fear that a 'Big Babu's relative/friend' may be driving the car and their job is in danger if they fine them - by this way all the car drivers are waived off penalty for offending.

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was involved in a tiff with a bus conductor while returning home the other day..this bus was been driven over foot paths and.. my question was 'neevu heege madidre hege' the answer was 'neenu madodillava?' so the devil in me was urging me to do it myself..but my zen did not have enough ground clearence! :P

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