Smooth ride on city roads? Never!

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s instructions to civic agencies and cops to reduce congestion on Bengaluru’s roads have not come a day too late considering the mayhem the IT City witnesses every morning and evening.

The CM highlighted the lack of synchronisation of traffic signals and potholes as two reasons for the slow-moving traffic but there are a lot more and city residents, forced to sweat it out daily on top of flyovers amid blaring horns and nauseating fumes, know them better than anyone else.

For one, the countless infra and road projects launched by multiple agencies including Namma Metro, BBMP and BWSSB that have attained notoriety for overshooting their deadlines, are one major bottleneck. All one has to do to realise this is drive on the stretch from Jayadeva Junction to Silk Board that was once a vital corridor for thousands of IT professionals scrambling to reach Electronics City in the early morning hours. Or travel on the road from Ejipura to Kendriya Sadan where a flyover is being constructed for ages.

Traffic is reduced to a crawl and a few minutes in this jumble of vehicles amid furious commuters is enough to send one’s head spinning. The CM would be doing a lot of good to city residents if he called a meeting with agencies whose mega projects are stalled for one reason or the other and make sure they are completed at the earliest.

A schedule for project completion should be drawn up and meticulous monitoring be done to ensure the ‘chalta hai’ attitude does not affect the flow of traffic.

In the Central Business District (CBD), roads may be slightly better but not traffic flow, and this is where the cops have to devote a lot of attention. For instance, parked school buses and private vehicles take up most of the busy corridors like Residency Road, leaving barely enough space for a single line of vehicles.

The result is slow-moving chock-a-block traffic on these stretches, which leads to pileups in nearby roads like MG Road and Double Road. One wonders why senior cops and school managements cannot draw up a plan to ensure vehicles ferrying kids are parked elsewhere – on the school premises maybe – so that citizens are spared the agony of honking endlessly and helplessly experiencing their blood pressure shoot up.

Synchronisation of signals has not happened and one realises this on most city roads – not even in the heart of the city on roads like Kasturba Road and Cubbon Road. This is obvious in the umpteen stops a driver ends up making on a ride from the south of the city to the north, or the other way round.

There is a lot of work for the traffic department to do on city roads – and surprisingly, most cops manning signals prefer the cosy comfort of their cabins rather than come out and ensure traffic jams are cleared at the earliest.

Of course, more traffic cops are needed and we can only hope that this happens soon. Bengalureans are a patient lot and endure a lot of interruptions and irritants in their daily lives including the endless wait on city roads and back-breaking rides but for how long? The CM and his ministers have to act and act fast so that citizens feel there is a responsive administration out there that cares for them and is ready to cater to their needs.