Not really a piece of modern art,
but the junction I daily crosses to reach my office. A few months back there
was a public outcry on the quality of Bangalore roads and the administration
(State government, BBMP,BDA,NHAI etc) folks were quick to point out that the road infrastructure
they built for Bangalore is nothing less than “World class”. While I am not sure of administration's
definition of “world class”, the picture below is a simple example of how
the roads are designed in Bangalore. The arrows indicate innumerable possible routes one
can take while crossing the junction and I might have missed a few I am sure. You
can find at least 5-6 junctions like while traveling from Silk board junction
towards electronic city on Hosur road. Service roads on either side allowing
traffic both directions and 6 line highway in the middle. (There is another 4
line above the head which i am not considering now). With service road allowing
traffic in both directions, traffic management in all junctions are a mess and I
don’t see any thought applied on designing the road or how the traffic should be
managed etc, instead the commuters are left to their patience to negotiate the
junctions in whatever way they want to do it.
Thinking of getting rid of the
vehicle and try walking! Better to get little bit of training first, as the pedestrians
are left to their acrobatic skills to cross the road. To cross the road
pedestrians need to either walk 1-2KM or just jump over the fences on either
side of the main lines and run across the road with speeding vehicles
approaching. Pedestrian underpasses are there in one or two major junctions. While the pedestrians are denied with even the basic infrastructure
such as decent foot paths, sky walks to cross roads (at least at busy roads) in
the city; administration is spending money in developing gardens around the
traffic junctions. Gardens are fine (after all Bangalore was a garden city once),
but why not give priority to the basic infrastructure first.
Talking about world class roads, I
travel around 5 KM to reach to Hosur road on my way to office in electronic
city, and just 30 speed breakers, that’s all I have to deal with. Haralur road
is even better with 45 speed breakers for 6.5KM. Forget about common man’s
daily commute (which is what our democratically elected administration does
every day, "forget common man"), just think about the plight of ambulances and fire force vehicles
trying deliver the services at the earliest.
