Bangalore’s Anamolies with Transport

Successive governments often talk of developing Bangalore into a ‘world class city’ with 'world class infrastructure'. But, however obsessed they are about this dream (indeed), they are still grappling to solve our traffic and road problem. Which leaves much of the disgruntled citizens of the city, wondering, which world they are talking about: the first or the third.

We often associate, first world infrastructure is, for the people, with the environment as paramount, and nobody needs to fight to be included in civic plans.

However, when we see Bangalore, the epitome of thirdworld infrastructure, we see lopsided expenditure, three-fourths of the money being spent on one-fourth of the (wealthier) people, ugly elevated highways and flyovers, traffic jams, emphasis on motorized private transport, few or no facilities for pedestrians and cyclists. poor housing, lack of drinking water, poor medicare. high air pollution, high water pollution destruction of greenery, heritage buildings and history of places. lack of concern for the rights of the physically challenged, the elderly and children. Overall a zero town planning.

On the above, the government plans to widen 140 km. of roads involving the destruction of thousands of homes, businesses and heritage buildings, the livelihood of thousands of footpath vendors, and cutting down 70,000 trees (equivalent to 10 Cubbon parks). However, Instead of spending Rs. 25000 Cr. on roa ds, spending Rs. 5000 Cr. on a bus-based public transport system would seriously cut down the traffic and congestion. This is a simplistic suggestion, but you get the drift.

Box: Here are some instances of serious anomalies in transport:

Per passenger, cars are the most polluting form of transport, followed by 2-wheelers. Pollution per person in a bus is 1/6 that of a car. Road space occupied by a person in a bus is 1/30 of that in a car.

The person least responsible for the air pollution and traffic congestion is the person most affected by them, and the least able to afford their consequences:

- Respiratory diseases that cause poorer daily quality of life, loss of work pay caused by illness and hospitalization costs

- Loss of mobility on roads because pedestrian facilities like footpaths and pedestrian crossings are poor and even non-existent in most places. 7 people have died crossing the road to the new airport in just the past 1 month.

- Inability to use the cheapest mode of personal transport, the bicycle.