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Signal-free corridors for arterial city roads - advisable?
Written By murali772 - 8 July, 2013
Bangalore Media Reports Skywalks traffic management Flyovers and underpasses pedestrian rights
What would be better is to complete the ongoing strategy of BBMP to make the Big10 roads and the Outer Ring Road signal free. This will create a preferred mobility corridor for movement in and out of the city, and also around the city. Such differentiation between high volume corridors and other roads is necessary to have any chance of managing the growing demand for mobility infrastructure.
For the full text of the article in the Citizen Matters by Dr Ashwin Mahesh, click here.
The suggestion for signal-free corridors has already evoked a number of responses from readers. The matter came up for considerable debate earlier too when the Sarjapur road stretch, passing through Koramangala, was sought to be made into a signal-free corridor (check here). The local residents resisted it, and appreciating the merits in their arguments, the Karnataka High Court eventually ordered restoration of the road to its original shape, work on which is progressing now.
However, the signal-free corridors along the Big-10 routes, suggested by Dr Ashwin Mahesh is also meant to speed up movement of public transport buses, and not just cars. And, isn't that a dire need today? Perhaps, there can even be restrictions on the movement of private cars along these corridors too during peak hours. As such, as long as good facilities for pedestrians, and bus users (elevated walk-ways, skywalks, etc - check here for good examples), can be created along these corridors, I would be overall OK with the idea.
Whatever, on other than these corridors, pedestrian crossings/ facilities should necessarily be at grade.
Muralidhar Rao
COMMENTS
msshankar1961@gmail.com - 11 July, 2013 - 07:39
What ever facilities we plan , under pass , ROB , Express Way all effort will go for vain unless otherwise, we implement the Rules. We can able to resolve the Congestion and Trafic woes just by strict implemention, education , and by punitive method.
1. Implement strictly No ENTRY of Heavy Vehicles in side the city Roads during Peak Hours.
2. Implement strictly No Parking Near the junctions and signals by BMTC, Public and Private Buses and fleets.
3. Implement strictly, the Private Company Vehicles used to ferry the public from Bus stops and junctions !
4. Implement strictly the Vehicles are used for which they are Registered to use.
4. Implement strictly the Autos are parked at their dedicated and identified STANDS.
5. Implement strictly the Heavy Vehicles refrain to use Right side of the Roads.
6. Implement strictly the BMTC Buses are stopped only at the identified Bus stops.
7. Implement strictly No encroachment of plat forms and Road by any means.
7. Implement strictly the commuters are standing on the foot path to board their Buses.
If we do this we can able to see a very good improvement on the congestion and trafic woes.
idontspam - 11 July, 2013 - 14:35
BBMP, BDA or any other agency is today incapable of implementing any road projects. They have converted all these into a sham to cheat you and me of our tax money. We should oppose any widening or additional road building projects undertaken by them. Let them fix engineering on the existing roads & show us how capble they are before attempting any signal free or flyover on any corridor.
Efficiency gains by fixing the existing roads will be far more than any project they can implement. They cant get tendersure in 5 roads, they shouldnt even talk of building anything. They took on suranjan das road how many moons ago? go see how it is today. Pathetic bunch.
Bombay Western Express Highway and signal free
s_yajaman - 12 July, 2013 - 03:57
Road widening and flyovers are pork barrel projects for BBMP and BDA to fatten contractors' bank balances and receive kickbacks for themselves. I can't think of any that have not fallen into this category. They have just kicked the can down the road. Very soon we can have a black asphalt circle of 10 km dia in the middle of Bangalore and the rest of the town around this. Then people can zip in whichever direction they want.
Look at Bombay's Western Express Highway - about 25 km of "signal free" road. It works beautifully - when there is low traffic. Evening peak hour time, traffic crawls at an average of 8-10kmph and on some stretches at 5-6 kmph. And for most of the distance this is 4+4 or even 5+5 not including service roads.
The flyover entrances are bottlenecks thanks to bad design and even worse motorist behaviour. People form 7 lanes where there are 5 road lanes and then try to muscle their way into the 3 lane flyover from every direction. The result is that the 500 m before many flyovers takes 5-10 minutes to cover. There is no way to put off your engine because you are condemned to a 1st gear crawl.
There are no dedicated bus lanes - because heaven forbid these will eat into car users rights. There is no toll to be paid to use it. It is badly potholed as of now on some parts. The junctions below are an utter mess because there is no slack or money to maintain them.
And we want to repeat this. And know BBMPs and BDAs supreme competence, it will be like an ugly cancer tissue running across town.
Innovation in town planning and work habits.
psaram42 - 12 July, 2013 - 05:11
Ad hoc solutions may not lead us any where. They amount to at best slipshod solutions.
"Discarded meridian approcah" may be worth while looking at. Click [1] Click [2] Gated communities surrounded by their work place is the basic concept. This facilitates further optimization. Work place accomodation provided by employer with primery schooling, can do wonders. work from home is popular now a days.
"Travelling sales man" consept may be of some relevence too! Retired people of cource have no problem in settling down at the place of their choice.
Exit/Entry Ramps, Priority for PT!
kbsyed61 - 10 July, 2013 - 15:26
Agree with What Ashwin is saying on piecemeal attempts by BDA/BBMP. If the attempt is to fix the traffic snarls, then it has to be end to end fix, i.e. you take stretch from one corner of the city to the other end of the city, example starting from Hoskote and ending at Kengeri, Yelahanka to Electronic city, Magadi Road to Thindlu/Bagalur etc. I am sure one can identify many more such corridors that would cover all the roads.
Regarding signal free corridors for BIG-10 and ORR that Ashwin is advocating makes a perfect sense if the identified corridors are provided with proper entry/exit ramps. Not with current design.
Actually what would really help is giving priority to PT system like dedicated lanes for buses on all roads at least during rush hours and private vehicles getting lesser priority. For faster flow of PT, may be certain roads be exclusively reserved for buses based on the road width, cars/others have to take a detour.
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