ICRR & Elevated Worries…
The announcement of the Inner Core Ring Road (ICRR) may have excited the bangaloreans with a hope that they could register for a Guinness world record for crossing the city end to end in minutes and not in hours or days as currently!!
Now the BDA and BBMP (remember we are now Brihat!!) after drilling down details for the ICRR which was designed in 2005 as a solution to clear traffic bottlenecks, estimates that it could cost anywhere about 60 crores per km to make the entire stretch Elevated!!
The reasoning being 51 junctions underneath this road would force it to be elevated as widening the existing stretches to six lanes is impossible!! With only 13 underpasses rather than 50 of them….ICRR, envisaged as access-controlled toll road, will now need an overall investment of Rs 1,800 crores and may claim several hundred trees coming its way….The entire stretch is now slated to be a six lane signal-free elevated carriageway.
The new mantra for Bangalore will be …‘Don’t worry just elevate them!!’
This is a good project, of-course there will be problems in implementing this roead, and this being inside the city, there will be more troubles, many people will put up court cases and some of them will even demonstrate on roads, but after all that hacks when this road will be available for public they will definately get benefited, see how well is the Outer Ring Road planned and is acting as an excellent medium of communication, but at the same side started getting heavily loaded so the alternatives have to be found out, or else there will traffic bottlenecks all across the city, see how fast and how many Bridges and how fast they have been made in Mumbai, its high time for our authorities to act on it, they should also try to build flyovers where-ever traffic remains congested all in the day, I would say atleast for the Marthahali Bridge they should make one more flyover on top of the underpass which connects dirrectly marthahalli to Railway bridge.
The most important loss will be of trees, but they should try to re-plant them as it is in the outer-skirts of the city or places which can even occupy them like in big-university campuses, colleges, govt. offices etc.
One Flyover is required at Indian Express, one on MG Road near Vijaya Bank, one near Shivaji Nagar, one near Shadashi Nagar, one near Sarjapur Road Junction, one near, Kormangala- Dairy circle and many more
@Wow you have pointed out most important point:
But I would like to know from public here, which they think is the most important congested square in the city which requires a flyover badly
Adding more roads espeially in the city centre is a rank bad idea to tackle congestion.Instead relocation of businesses from the city centre must be incentivized.
Yep Arvind, I agree with you. Relocate businesses to these upcoming peripheral townships, and build 4-5 good radial roads to get people in and out of the city.
recently i read an article, where a senior administration offical(jairaj, i think) said that they have not been able to replicate the bussiness district elsewhere.
but the fact is a few malls dont a shopping area make. malls are fine but bazaars are where people shop.
also, if i remember correctly, one of the bangalore CDP documents (which were once available online) mentioned the grand strategy is to eventually phase out retail type of bussiness out of the MG Rd CBD.
ofcourse, some other thinking people raised objections. currently i have no idea where this debate stands.
(from this perspective, giving the go ahead for ub city makes sense, given all the current constraints.)
in any case, i think ICRR is by itself very interesting. for one it is a transport road not an access road. what happens to the road below?
Tarle, I predict ICRR wont happen that soon. Not that it isn’t a good project, but too expensive. Not to say it isn’t a good idea, but HDK’s preference is satellite towns, and he’d put his money on radial roads instead.
If it does happen sooner, as you saud Tarle, we will have a transport road. The road below will be the “business” road – walk, shop, wine and dine types.
Guys,
This idea of ICCR ranks at the top alongside the many bad ideas which our urban planners have been having.
Let us take a look at what is the objective? The objective is to make commutting easier. What is the cost? Bangalore itself is the cost price. I have been coming to Bangalore from 1999 and used to spend 2 weeks per quarter. I used to look forward to those visits as this was a dream place. Even when I used to be in the city, it never felt that I was in a city.
Today that Bangalore is dead. Projects like this will make it extinct.
Take a look at the climate. It has changed drastically. Every year is hotter. This is due to increasing vehicles, apartment houses and malls & reduction in trees.
I suggest a couple of ways to improve the traffic instead of creating Roads. And my suggestions will cost much less than 1800 crores, generate employment for many and will not take ages to implement.
1. Make the weekdays as odd and even days. meaning on the odd day private vehicles ending with odd numbers can come on the street and on even days private vehicles ending with even numbers. This will cut down the number of vehicles on the road by half. Simultaneously, govt must pass a law making the taxes more than 10 times for a second vehicle in the family having a different end number than the previous one. This will stop the people from buying another one having a different ending.
2. Increase the fleet of govt buses, 1800 crores will get more than 10,000 buses. Bring them out on the road and create new routes which link the whole city. In this the govt can take a lesson from calcutta which has the maximum number of buses in both private and public sector.
3. Bring back the Trees. Start planting them now on the roadside and road dividers. In 5 years time, we might get back the old bangalore which attracted IT in the first place.
4. Create a maximum capacity plan for every area and do not permit people more than that to settle down in that area. If somebody wants to then they pay around 10000 times the current taxes.
If we keep on going the way we are going right now, then it won’t be much longer before Bangalore will start saying that “yes, I was the IT hub of India, but I *#$^ed it up by uncontrolled greed.”
Remember, it is not the people but the climate due to which IT came to Bangalore. Majority of IT workers are from outside Bangalore and mercenaries. Tomorrow, if IT shifts, (which it has already started) then they will also shift. The only loser will be Bangalore.
In this respect, I would like to call your attention to various townships which flourished in their time but are history today as the indusries associated with them left them. Example – Jharia, once a flourishing town, now a deserted place waiting to be consumed by the fires lit by human greed.
Hoping that sanity will prevail.
Sanjay
India’s IT capital, Bangalore now has an ‘unhealthy’ tag. Its stressful and hectic urban lifestyle has taken a toll on its people. The city has been rated unsatisfactory on the ‘health quotient’ index by Tata AIG Life Insurance Company
Bangalore scores 58 on 100. A good lifestyle city needs to have a rating of 80 to 100.