CRS Bangalore: A project that never gets the green

tsubba - 27-FEB-2008

The railway budget 08-09 is out. The fares are down. Plea for Bangalore-Arsikere-Mangalore is left un-answered, but we have been blessed with a handful of other trains instead. Also featured in the new budget are more half hearted promises on the same old projects that have been on simmer since more than a decade now (be done with the Gulbarga Bidar line already). As far as Bangalore, in and by itself is concerned, the CRS finds no mention in the 08-09 budget. With this two years would have passed in the Comprehensive Traffic and Transport Plan's Phase I(07-12) with no action on the 204 km CRS project.

Public Transport For Bangalore

tsubba - 8-FEB-2008

1) Why is it that the excise duty is 16 per cent on buses and a mere 1-2 per cent for BMWs?
2) Why not stop registration of cars like Singapore did?
3) You talk of conserving fuel and at the same time promote large segment cars. There are no concessions for small cars. Reva gets an excise duty concession, not here, but in London!
4) Transport is not about travelling between two points but about making a statement on ‘having arrived’
5) The road transport authority constituted has only bureaucrats, instead of multiple stakeholders.
6) Broadways and more flyovers are not the answer, as Bangkok has found out! Despite widening its roads it has not been able to avoid traffic jams at bottlenecks.
7) Witness the spate of road widening in Bangalore that has seen hundreds of trees felled. To what purpose? Simply to allow a mind-boggling 2.5 million vehicles to speed for a distance and then cruise to crawling speed! We never seem to learn.

Stats From CTTP

tsubba - 2-FEB-2008

Some related stats from Bangalore's CTTP (Chapter 3).

Distribution of Trips by Purpose

Bangalore CTTP Update

tsubba - 17-JAN-2008

Karnataka Government has begun work on the CTTP by starting consultations with the Union Urban Development Ministry (UUD) on implementing the plan. State additional chief secretary Niraja Rajkumar, submitted the plan and made a detailed presentation to Union Urban Development Secretary M Ramachandran on Jan 15, 2008. The plan incldes various projects to be implemented in three phases - 2007-12, 2013-18 and 2019-24 at a total cost of 46,994 crore rupees.

East loop of Outer Ring Road (Silkboard - Marathahalli - Hebbal) should get:

Vasanth - 15-JAN-2008

* Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) * Monorail (Like the west loop, so full ORR will be monorail * Increased frequency of buses (Refer Murali's post on Indore bus system)

Bangalore Airport Link Rail Corporation

tsubba - 18-DEC-2007

TNN's R Jayaprakash(ToI Dec 18 2007) is reporting that in the next few weeks, the government will float a Bangalore Airport Link Rail Corporation and set up a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to handle the affairs. Quoting an official working on the project the report says that the tentative name suggested is Bangalore Airport Rail Link Corporation. This follows the meeting DMRC’s E Sreedharan had with the governor. The governor’s office will seek Centre’s consent in the absence of an elected body. And get this, apparently, the train promises to take you from MG road to airport in just 15 minutes!!!

Commuter Rail can make our city better

sivanandas - 14-DEC-2007

CTTP has all the details for improving transport facilities in Bengaluru through various options. While the Metro / Mono take their own sweet time for completion, making use of the existing railway network on a limited scale on a few routes can be an immediate solution. I understand that the railway lines cover only a certain portion of the city, and local train transport with feeder bus services will have a great impact for that portions. The Kengeri-Whitefield route can be a pilot route as it is already an electrified double track. With the BMTC & private industrial managements, including software tech parks providing feeder services from their respective places to the nearest terminals, this can be a very effective solution in the immediate future. Our daily traffic situation is only growing worser day-by-day and i believe if this is implemented in a small way, our city can become better.

Bangalore's elevated roads

silkboard - 10-DEC-2007

Dont just think the elevated expressway from Silk Board junction to Electronics City. Our city is planning for a few more elevated roads to speeden up movements in and out of the city:

1) Sirsi circle flyover to Outer Ring Road (Kengeri) - 6 km elevated. BBMP got started with this one last week by calling for RFPs (read here on BBMP website, mentions 4 lane elevated corridor).

2) Silk Board junction to Shoolay Circle. BBMP should soon be floating an RFP on this one too. Its a pretty long one, 10.5 kms going by the CTTP (here).

3) Yeshwantpur and Outer Ring Road junction - 5 km elevated. Things seem to be moving on the Nelamangala tollway project (we discussed recently). But it is not clear to me if the 5 km elevated stretch at Yeshwantpur is part of the tollway project.

Bangalore Flyovers & Grade Separators

tsubba - 7-DEC-2007

Gali Anjaneya Project Delayed
S Lalitha, DHNS

The flyover project near the Gali Anjaneyaswamy temple at Mysore road, which is aimed at decongesting traffic on the road and surroundings, will be completed only by June next year.

Construction for the project began in October 2006 with a 15-month deadline stipulated but the project is now way behind meeting it.

CTTP Bangalore - Still some weaknesses

Naveen - 19-NOV-2007

Whilst this is obviously an elaborate study, the recommendations for Mass Transit systems still raises a few questions :