B’luru traffic: It can’t get any slower

A Dutch multinational on Wednesday came up with an interesting report – Namma Bengaluru is the second slowest city to drive in after faraway London where it takes 36 minutes and 20 seconds to cover 10 km. Bengalureans are slightly luckier as the statistics presented show they can cover the same distance in 29 minutes and 10 seconds. This is one distinction we could have done without.

In fact those who get caught in the quagmire called city traffic on a daily basis, would be wondering which roads in the city’s heart they can cover in 10 minutes and 29 minutes. It inevitably takes almost an hour during peak hours if one were to travel through the ever busy Central Business District(CBD). And if there is civic or metro work happening on the route or an unavoidable traffic bottleneck like an accident or VVIP movement, the duration could be much more. Now that the Dutch agency has put it out in black and white, it would be a worthwhile exercise to examine the reasons why traffic tends to slow down to frustrating levels in the IT City.

Infrastructure work on incomplete projects including the metro, flyovers, underpasses and ring roads are one major impediment to the smooth and fast flow of vehicles. Another major reason is the total dependence on private vehicles for commuting including two-wheelers, cars and SUVs which flood the roads every morning and evening leaving the roads jam-packed with vehicles almost colliding with each other as they move at a snail’s pace on city roads.

There are just too many vehicles on the roads and as a senior police official put it, the vehicle numbers could soon cross the actual population of Bengaluru which is around 1.25 crores. And why do people prefer to ride their own vehicles however tiresome it may be moving even a few metres in city traffic, instead of relying on the Metro network which now covers a significant part of the city, or on BMTC buses?

In Delhi for instance, reports say buses are the most popular means of transport catering to about 60 per cent of transport needs despite the fact that at times commuters have to hang on to the steps of these buses particularly during rush hour. In Mumbai, it is the suburban rail network which carries thousands of commuters with public taxis and autos acting as an auxiliary mode of transport.

But in Bengaluru, most people prefer to hop into their cars or whizz away on their bikes to reach their destinations even if it means inhaling all the noxious fumes on the way and also enduring the choc-a-bloc traffic. This speaks volumes about the inefficient public transport system we have-where people have to wait and wait for the right bus to arrive which then takes more than an hour to cover for example, the distance from the southern reaches of the city to the Majestic transport hub.

As for the Metro, getting a train means travelling a distance of at least a km or two to the nearest metro station which would entail an additional expenditure of Rs 30-40. The Metro will take you to your destination 10 km away in 15 minutes but it will take at least half an hour for you to negotiate the 1-2 km distance from your home to the station which proves what ails the city transport system-the absence of last mile connectivity.

The lakhs of vehicles on city roads is enough of a pointer to the sad fact that attention has not been paid to provide a smooth transport system for Bengalureans with better last mile connectivity. With CM Bommai set to present his last budget of his tenure on Friday, all eyes are on whether Bengaluru will get what it is desperately waiting for-a better public transport system.