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Any mention of removing transformers and other electrical/telecom installations of BESCOM/BSNL from footpaths?

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No I dont know the details, I was just complimenting ABIDe on the good suggestion.

But, I dont think this will be volunteering or part time type. If it gets accepted and implemented it will probably be a full fledged 'govt' job.

Personally, my view, like SB's, is that part time and volunteer doesnt work for a job where you need to be accountable to the results.

Meanwhile, I have updated Gyan with example pedestrian ramp specs. Need to beef up the data.

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Though I am supposed to be a registered volunteer, and received many mails inviting me to comment on the proposals, I didn't receive any intimation whatsoever about the presentation in Koramangala club. I came to know about it only after seeing the press reports. And, then the talk of poor response - strange!

Muralidhar Rao

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The big 10 and most of the suggestions pander to the car junta. I dont think the big 10 is a bad idea. I would have loved to see some alternative rail based proposals to connect the satellite towns. There is too much road in there even if it is good. A shinkansen type train from Bangalore will take little over 30 mins to reach mysore. It beats any road system you will put your money on. With supplementary hourly commuter rail serving towns in between. Imagine what a 30 min travel to mysore will mean to decongestion plans, heck I will move to mysore.

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So the "blue prints" are out. I for one see the value of successful businessmen adding value via ABIDe on the "execution" side. After all, there is little dearth for plans and idas to solve the city's woes. And if a quality plan is to be prepared yet again, why get it done by volunteers (even if its quality minds like Ashwin Mahesh and RK Misra)? If the city really needs the skills, it needs to pay for them. Activists and enthusiasts are to act as watchdogs, not drivers.

Regardless, the transportation report looks good. All routine stuff that we discuss and breathe here on Praja is in, impressive indeed. Here are things I find worth calling out:

Positives

• Bus priority lanes. Finally.
• Hop on Hop off circular bus services in CBD. Similar to Naveen's idea of single lane looping BRTS like systems.
• Ditches the Core Ring Road idea. Justification given is it will kill aesthetics of CBD.
• Talk of making 10 radial corridors signal free till ORR. Expect lot of magic boxes I guess, Bellary Road work done for BIAL has provided encouragement here. Perhaps the North-South and East West elevated corridor ideas is dead by now.
• Talk of centralized databses of vehicle registration and driving licenses.
• Traffic impact assesment of new developments, good show. This needs to get in BDA's Masterplan more directly.
• Talk of strengthening BMLTA. :) :)
• The idea of giving high FSI in exchange of getting Bus-bays on private land. Good beginning on the lines of "plaza bonus".
• Talk of data lead planning (slide 5)
• Idea of retaining corner plots in new layouts so that city has more options to work on road mouths at signals in the future (slide 17)

Negatives

• Making 10 corridors junction free needs a corresponding plan to reduce access/merge points so that short haul traffic doesn't mix up with through traffic. Bus priority lanes have not been defined well - left to traffic police for enforcement is it? Lets see. Unless you make them dedicated, you would be encouraging car junta via signal elimination.
• Talk of yet another byelaw amendment to provide for adequate parking facilities when there is little enforcement happening on the ground. On the whole, there are no "execution" side suggestions. BBMP is short staffed and crippled for authority due to overlaps. Addressing that would do it, don't need more byelaw tuning.
• No talk of extending catchment areas of BMTC bus stands via investment in local area transportation (shuttles, locally bound autos, anything similar). Big 10 bus service etc will fail unless we all can get a way to reach the bus stands.
• Suggestion of more gadgetry for Traffic Police, no talk of getting into their operations. Are 1800 cops enough? What targets are set each of them? How is their performance measured?
• At one place, RK and Prof Mahesh say Road widening will be discouraged (slide 6), but then slide 28 talks of asking Defence, St John's etc for land to widen roads.
• Slide 12 is confusing - It first says ORR to be made signal free. And then, there is talk of elevated ORR on the median. Why not just go elevated if thats thought of as the way forward, why waste money on signal elimination? Unless I am not reading it right, this section of the report is a bit rushed.
• No backing data for the ten identified corridors. An exmaple from my area makes me say this. Why pick Varthur Road when the road going towards ITPL sees five times more traffic than the road going towards Varthur Lake? That one example tells me that other corridors too may not have been picked in data-backed or scientific way. Prof Ashwin Mahesh has all the data on vehicle movements, hope that was an input to this report.

Alright. Likely that I have not read something right so a criticism here would be unjustified. Will keep correcting myself as I read the report a third or fourth time.

Anyway, Hope ABIDe ignores criticism etc for some of the points here, thats part of the game, neither are they paid experts, nor us. Execute well and in standards-driven fashion on half of the things in this report, and we will be home. Look forward to the followups :)

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