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The joys of crossing a road
Written By silkboard - 13 January, 2009
Bangalore ORR Crossings KR Puram Benniganahalli Citizen Reports Safe Passage OMR Transportation Infrastructure Pedestrian Infrastructure Mobilicity
The pedestrian chaos at ORR-Old Madras Road interchange can'tt be stated in words, so I tried this video last week (find it below). The place is a live example of collaboration, lack of it rather, between multiple sarkaari bodies. Bring this up with a babu in Bangalore and instead of ideas or initiatives, you will get stories of how things can only fall between NHAI, Railways, BDA, and the Traffic Police but not improve. Oh yeah, the job of taking initiatives is best left to the citizens.
[Video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oTR5f27rTU]
Some bonus things for you to note in the video , that is if you have never been to this side of the city:
- Notice how call center cabs create the jam as you hit the bridge from Whitefield side. Notice the Unisys cab picking up passengers in this video.
- You wont miss the flood of pedestrians crossing over to catch the bus. This is 9:00 am, and there is no ped-xing signal, or cop to help them cross.
- Enter the OMR/ORR road merge area next to HP bunk. The place isn't as crowded in the video, but notice the folks walking around freely everywhere on the road. Why? The buses stop everywhere.
- Last, towards the end of the video, notice the call center cab picking up passengers at the foot of the flyover.
Some photos as well of this buzzing area. In one of these, notice a traffic signal on Old Madras Road right at the foot of the cable bridge. Haven't seen it working recently, and not sure of its purpose - to let people pedestrians cross, or to control the ORR/OMR merge?
[flickr-photo:id=3187122566,size=m][flickr-photo:id=3187122560,size=m]
[flickr-photo:id=3187122558,size=m][flickr-photo:id=3189374983,size=m]
If you read this post till here, would you be game to join in for a "cross the Old Madras Road" event at this spot!? 10-15 of us will experience the joys of being pedestrian first hand, and take some pictures to mail to ABIDE, BDA, Traffic Police etc.
COMMENTS
idontspam - 13 January, 2009 - 07:04
Only crying baby gets its milk
psaram42 - 13 January, 2009 - 08:02
Off topic - please nip this in the bud.
s_yajaman - 13 January, 2009 - 10:14
Admin,
Clearly off-topic. Please nip this in the bud. This is about crossing roads and how migration and linguistic diversity and Nandan's book fits in is hard to imagine. Crossing roads has always been a nightmare in Bangalore and most Indian cities. And it is not just out of state migrants that drive rashly. Even migrants from Mandya/Maddur (many of our yellow board brethren), our local autos drive equally badly.
Nijavaada - I think a separate thread on sustainable development and issues related to migration is welcome. I agree that we are on a path of unsustainable growth.
Srivathsa
Raised pedestrian crossings don't work too well
s_yajaman - 13 January, 2009 - 11:44
I know a number of these are being planned, but my experience is that they don't work for the pedestrian for a number of reasons.
a. They don't reduce speed enough. I have seen cars go at almost 30 kmph over these (Yes 30 kmph happens sometimes in our city ;)).
b. No channeling of traffic into lanes just before these (they can use bollards for this). Yes there are lane markings, but there are at least 2X vehicle lanes on any stretch of road. So imagine the plight of person stuck in the middle of this crossing. Yes, most times they come out alive, but it is not fun to be stuck in the middle.
c) Nothing to warn motorists about 50 m before that there is a crossing coming. They need to put warning about 50 m and blinking lights on either side of the crossing so that motorists can expect this - same goes for pedestrian crossings.
Traffic has to be channeled into 2-3 lanes at these crossings via refuges so that pedestrians cross one lane at a time and know that an extra lane will not be created by an enterprising motorcyclist. I think this needs to be done at pedestrian crossings as well, with the added advantage of streamlining traffic into lanes.
Srivathsa
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