Deccan Chronicle 09.09.2009

City has less road cover

Bengaluru, Sept. 8: Road space is abysmally low in Bengaluru and several other Indian cities, contributing to the traffic problems that besiege them.

A study on road-land ratio, says ideally the road space reserved in cities should be closer to 30 per cent to allow smooth flow of vehicular traffic. For instance, if a city is spread over 1,000 sq. km, 30 per cent of it should be road, explains additional commissioner of police (traffic and security) Pravin Sood.

Unfortunately, Benglauru has only 11.9 per cent of its area reserved for roads, which is one of the prime reasons for traffic congestion in the city.

“Bengaluru ranks second in terms of vehicular population in the country, next only to Delhi, which has 70 lakh vehicles while the city has 35 lakh. This means, every second person here has a vehicle,” he points out.

Roads cover 18 per cent of Delhi and 10 per cent of Mumbai and Chennai. But these cities have adequate mass transportation facilities in place like the Metro Rail and suburban trains and additionally they have witnessed mostly vertical growth. “In contrast, the haphazard and uncontrolled growth of Bengaluru is proving a nightmare for traffic management,” Mr Sood regrets.

As the problem worsens with part of the roads being occupied by parked vehicles, it is very important to have parking lots in the city at various locations, especially in the Central Business District (CBD), according to him. In his view the on-going infrastructure projects of BBMP and the BDA and work on the Metro Rail have aggravated the problem. At least 30 projects like flyovers, grade separators and underpasses are underway in the city. The traffic police, like most of the city, is looking forward to the completion of the infrastructure projects over the next one-and-a-half years, which could ease traffic congestion on the roads.