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KR Puram meeting - pics
Written By silkboard - 14 February, 2009
Traffic Bangalore Praja ORR Meeting KR Puram Citizen Reports OMR Pedestrian Infrastructure Traffic jams Mobilicity
7 of us showed up, 6 in one batch and 1 on his own (came to know later) for this event. Met Kannan for the first time and speaking to him made it clear that he has given detailed thoughts to possible solutions for this chaos. He will soon be scanning and posting his sketches here.
We ended up spending most of our time on the Benniganahalli lake side of this chaotic place, so not enough pics from the more popular traffic chokepoint which happens to be right under the bridge.
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I have been hoping to find some quality time to call out few points right on top of these pics, but for lack of time, its better to upload some random ones from the pack, and do any paints later.
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Things I noted:
- There is enough space for a two lane island bus stand which could be used by buses that will stay on OMR (towards Kolar), or on ORR (towards Hennur)
- There is a huge bus bay right after HP Petrol Bunk, but is just not used!!
- There is a pedestrian operated signal installed, but has not been working for many months now.
- The island bus stand (opposite from HP Petrol bunk) is very popular. the buses on this side (near ptrol bunk) have lot more space to play with.
- Saw two close shaves right when we were watching around, have even captured one on camera. This on a Saturday late morning?
- Three traffic cops were parked, right near the temple, in "stand and deliver" mode, doing nothing more than paper checking from what I could see. There was one more traffic cop, directing traffic near the island bus stand. Anyway, they too moaned about pedestrian problems and said that the place needs a ped subway.
- Vehicles, esp autos and cabs go in all directions under the bridge, even when one traffic cop was standing. Basically, there are self create and un-written rules that keep everyone happy - cabs/autos carrying traffic out of Railway Station, vehicles going in and out from Kagdaspura side.
- Less said about pedestrian markings/pavements/signs/facilities the better. But its a two way street - peds are all over the place (their fault too), and there are no clear signs to guide them as well. One traffic cop I spoke to was very vocal about this (pedestrians on the loose!).
Some more tidbits:
- That pedestrian operated signal has now been working for last few days. Perhaps just a coincidence :) But in any case, nobody respects the newly operating signal, red or green, vehicles just go and go.
- One of the traffic cops told us that K R Puram police station maintains stats on accidents at this hotpost. (Kannan told us that 3 kids have died crossing the road under the bridge in last 8 months). Just getting and publicizing those stats should help.
- Manjari suggested that we organize "Praja caps" so that it will be easier for us to find each other at Praja events. Great idea! She has volunteered to help organize the caps for us, eagerly looking forward to wearing them.
I think we should do more such field events, but need to organize and publicize better. Being on the street (and not merely seeing things from our bikes and cars) provides better picture of things.
Last but not the least, next steps?
- Kannan has not approached any authorities yet. We should take his and our thoughts to Traffic Police. Let us approach Mr Sood, as well as BDA when we think we are ready.
- Apparently, railways and BDA have agreed on a solution to get more road width for ORR under the bridge (unsure). Should check on this and track whatever they may have planned.
COMMENTS
kbsyed61 - 14 February, 2009 - 15:01
SB,
Is it possible to get some drawings (rather sketches) to understand the dynamics of this junction? It would help to understand the vicinity better. Looking at pictures, your summation that this place has enough width to streamline traffic including safe bus stops and ped Xings is not at all a exaggeration.
Looking forward to cKannan's solutions.
Transmogrifier - 25 June, 2010 - 20:33
KBS, ASJ, SB and others,
SB (and all who were there) first off, great pics! Can't wait to see CKannan's suggestions. KBS here's an description of the dynamics of the junction (see pic below). It's been a couple of years since I've driven through here, some things (like the huge bus bay on OMR!!) have changed, sadly little else has.
From Praja_posts
There's three major flow-patterns here
- Outer Ring Road (ORR) traffic, continuing along ORR using the lanes along and passing underneath the cable-stayed bridge (red and orange lines)
- Old Madras traffic (OMR) continuing along OMR using the cable stayed bridge (green and dark blue lines)
- ORR traffic changing over to OMR lanes (yellow lines) and OMR traffic changing to ORR lanes (white lines)
Chokepoint 1 (White square):
- In the eastbound lanes, complications arise because of the traffic crossover pattern (yellow and white lines) .
- This is worsened by the bus stop (green/red circle) right where the two streams of traffic diverge (KR Puram Bridge 010 in SB's pics). When buses back up, (KR Puram Bridge 025), it reduces the distance available for safe lane changes.
- For the westbound lanes, the white and yellow lines do not cross, but this is nullified by the crossing over of the dark blue and orange lines.
- Buses coming from Hoskote (dark blue line) must cross over ORR lanes (orange line) immediately and stop at the bus stop (blue/orange circle) worsening the lane change pattern (KR Puram Bridge 001 and KR Puram Bridge 031). As SB points out, no one (bus drivers, passengers, BTP) really uses the existing bus bay (seen in the top right corner of KR Puram Bridge 020).
Chokepoint 2 (Pink square):
- Traffic (mainly taxis and autos leaving KJM station) crossing eastbound ORR lanes to merge with westbound ORR lanes (light blue line, also see KR Puram Bridge 040)
- Traffic from Narayanpura crossing westbound ORR lanes to merge with eastbound ORR lanes (pink line)
Need more? Chokepoint 3 (yellow square) which I haven't described in detail is a mess of a narrow RUB (with bad roads) and an intersection with a small cross road (Nagavarapalya Main Road)
Poor planning, design, enforcement or integration (or all)...take your pick!
-----
PS: Dr. ASJ, Buses going under the flyover and those using the flyover are mutually exclusive Those using the flyover are headed towards Hoskote while those passing under veer off towards Whitefield/ORR.
thampan - 15 February, 2009 - 16:00
2) extend this from OMR to the whitefield road ( a fly over would be required over the rail tracks) so that traffic from hebbal on ORR can directly go to whitefield bypassing the hanging bridge ..
( these should have beenthought of 9 years back, and may be difficult to implement now, at that time ramamurthy nagar was sparsely populated )
3) build a subway for pedestrian crossing with an intermediate bus shelter for passengers waiting to get on to OMR bound buses.
pink square can be managed in my opinion, do not allow vehicles to turn back after coming out of the KRPuram railway station, they can travel further for 100 meters and turn back from under the fly over
vehicles coming out from narayanpura, this traffic has increased in recent times, better will be to provide an alternate route fast ( create a new road behind the school ) and connect it to the ORR much ahead of the fly over junction ( on side nearer to marathahalli) , two problems solved - a better road for those residents, traffic congestion on orr reduced
of course all these are capital intensive projects, but looking ahead 20 years into the future, these ( and perhaps much more ) should be done ...
What a man made problem - a classic as far as allowing ribbon development is concerned. Vast expanse of development in close proximity to what is a NH4 and the developments on either side are cut off from each other. Other than the NH4, at least looking at google maps, the vast developments have poor road infrastructure within them. Too late to tackle all this.
TM (and others) - I can see why you say the buses have to go over the flyover. But just beyond the lake to left of the flyover is a bus station? How do buses get there?
What may be worth considering in grand scheme of things is to see if it is possible for buses to not take the flyover, go along OMR, turn right in to bus station and continue forward journey via kasturi nagar road. One can create an exclusive bus only right turn. In fact the buses get closer to where people work/live this way.
On the whole, the lane changes nightmare is so big, that strategic placement of signals may be needed to regulate the same. If buses have to go over flyover, perhaps it may help to pull back the bus stop well back. Once again use strategically placed signals to allow buses to switch lanes to move towards flyover (keep bus stops for buses going OMR way and ORR way via flyover distant from each other).
NB: Take all this with pinch of salt as I have no knowledge of the site
ASJ
asj - 14 February, 2009 - 14:14
Good pics. Very concerning (especially given that this is the situation across the country).
Personally, I would start with pedestrian facilities - not subways or skywalks. Proper pedestrian refuges and use these as grade separators to streamline traffic and kill two birds in one stone.
I wonder if there is advantage or more disadvantage of running buses over the flyover. It may become more easy to use kerb side bus lanes / bus bays and go udner the flyover - I suspect this will be much easier to implement as well.
Good luck.
ASJ
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