Rush hour muse …
The picture here shows one segment of a traffic build-up from Pottery Road in Frazer Town, right up to Davis Road. That’s a long stretch, and sheer rotten to be stuck here at 10 am.
I have been living around Richards Town for the last twenty years or more, so I guess I’m qualified to provide a flash-back perspective. Looking back, what was traffic like around Richards Town / Cooke Town / Da Costa Square ?
For one thing, there was nothing like a “rush hour” in the morning. No clogging whatsoever at the “tunnel” near the police station. Going over the Mosque Road overbridge was a breeze. And the level crossing near ITC didn’t get your pressure to hit the stack. Your kids were safe on the road, old ladies didn’t need help to cross the road and auto drivers didn’t by and large miss you by a whisker if they suddenly wanted to go in another direction.
So what happened ?
One of the major reasons for the increase in traffic was the rapid development of residential pockets in and around the Ring Road. This happened real fast and Mosque Road / Wheeler Road and the Lingarajapuram Road became the transit roads for people residing in these extension areas.
The second reason was a spurt in the conversion of properties into towering residential apartments. This is understandable from an evolution point of view – older properties have to make way for upscale development as time passes by. But all this happened faster than most people around here could imagine.
But, if you really review the traffic scenario post the one-way system, the biggest problem is the smart-ass who is trigger happy on the throttle, or the one who thinks he can take a short cut because he can get away just one more time. One smart-ass takes a short cut and he soon has followers – perfect formula for another traffic hold-up.
nice retrospective. i have been reading bangalore MB for about one year. i have yet to see a pic where the sidewalk is clean, complete, and unobstructed.
Sharat,
I have absolutely nothing against you, but I feel we need to stop cribbing about the “development” and how things were in the past… Come on now.. Yes, Bangalore has developed.. Yes, the peaceful locality has been disrupted.. But lets get over it already.. If one really feels so bad about things, lets get the hands dirty and do something about it.. (If you are already doing something, then great.. if you arent.. its about time u did given that u understand the problems..)
The point is, its easy to criticise, however it is much more difficult to give solutions..
My 2 cents.
Vikram.
Thank you for your “2 cents”, Vikram. Much appreciated.
Sharath
Dear Radman : Where are you ? And what do you do ?
I was living in Bangalore for 7 years from 2000-2007 and experienced this a lot. But I believe this is the issue in each and every developing city in india ..e.g. Pune(which I know apart from Bangalore). The main issue is that more and more people are moving towards cities where more opportunities are, which is good in my opinion. But at the same time govt is not able to keep up with the development plan …I believe there is very little that people can do themselves(though that do not stop us from taking small steps!), even if they form small groups, as you do not have control over public property(its the govt. who needs to take care of that). I know of a incident where a IT company offered to do footpath on the road where they had office, but govt. officials didn’t allowed them for whatsoever reasons :)
Hi Sharath
I live in the same area. It has been ages since several senior citizens from this area have ventured to Richards Park, these days they walk within their building premises to strech their legs. Yes, expansion and lack of a proper public transport system takes its tolls on the road. Hope the Metro will ease some of the congestion as and when it comes up.
Best
Lubna
Sharath, continuing Vikram’s line of thinking… only backwards. Where were all of us who crib about Bengaluru’s newfound problems 10 years ago? Were we not a part of the upwardly mobile middle class who felt that finally we would have our day in the sun? Were we not one of those who cheered the rise of the tech capital? Why did we not try to regulate the growth at the very beginning? Because we all were greedy enough to just take what was offered and forgot about the consequences. After all that’s what the Govt is supposed to take care of right?
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