Hold elevated corridor; prioritise Suburban rail, metro, UMTA: Residents

The residents are crying hoarse over the state government’s misplaced priorities. While the cash crunch is prompting the chief minister to ask every government department to cut down on expenses, the government is also mulling over introducing the Rs 27000 crore elevated corridor. The residents are against it, because they believe that during a cash crunch, the priorities should be towards a suburban rail, an extended metro, and a Unified Metropolitan Transportation Authority (UMTA) that will oversee all the navigational utilities, avoid much red tape and make public transport, much more user-friendly and impactful.

The UMTA, though announced early last year is yet to see the light due to the transport department’s reservations. The department doesn’t want a superior authority to supercede them as UMTA will integrate BMTC, BMRCL, BBMP, BDA, DULT, KSRTC, SWR, NHAI, BMRDA and the traffic police. With such sweeping powers under one umbrella body, the public transport will get a fillip, but the powers of the transport department will be reduced. Therefore, the state government will have to take some tough decisions in favour of the city’s welfare, and for once forget about its own.

“We can easily get over 150 kilometres of metro/light rail across Bengaluru and control our current mess of being the most congested city in the world,” says Vishnu Prasad, the president of the Kasavanahalli Development Forum (KDF), a federation of several resident welfare associations in Bellandur. “Also the prioritized section don’t solve a majority of the top 10 congested spaces. Why then push the elevated corridor on priority?”

The residents believe that for setting the priorities, you don’t need to be an urban planner. You have to just cast aside your vested interests and view the situation without bias, and the truth will emerge. Suggests Prasad: “Sarjapur Road metro is missing; that’s 2-3 lakh commuters. Suburban rail, ORR metro (1 million commuters), revised master plan roads, minibus and last mile connect. It’s okay to be in loss; give accessibility to the last mile.”

The idea of the residents is that if the above-mentioned plans are carried out, then the government can plan an elevated corridor, if needed. Says Prasad: “We are not against EC, but it seems there is lack of a coordinated plan to solve congestion. Atleast we should get the UMTA done now! Let the professionals handle it.”

In June last year, the Citizens for Bengaluru (Cfb) group met member of parliament Tejasvi Surya and requested him to form a ‘Multi partisan Working Group of MPs’ to realize Suburban rail project with all the MPs representing Bangalore and the suburbs. According to Srinivas Alavilli of CfB, the deputy chief minister has promised the group that the bus lanes are the government’s priority and they will be implemented across 12 high-density corridors. “This is a great sign because the bus can become faster than the car,” Alavilli said in a Facebook post, and added that the other three factors that will work is if the number of MyBMTC app downloads goes up from the current 76000 to 10 lakh people, if BMTC adds 6000 more buses as promised in the next 2-3 years, and if the fares are made reasonable as they are right now the highest in the country. 

EDITORSPEAK
Everything is possible if the state government employs proper experts who have done similar UMTAs around the world, and implements their suggestions. Holding the ignoble title of being the most traffic-congested city in the world, it’s time the state and central governments come together to solve this problem of India’s Silicon Valley. Without proper transportation services, even the VVIPs will be stuck in traffic for hours on end. Therefore, it is in their interest to remove the many woes on the roads with a combination of suburban rail, metro, priority bus lanes, feeder services, and an umbrella authority like UMTA managing all of them.