Arterial one-ways: Do they make sense?

Will more arterial one-ways help to ease traffic congestion?
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: In the face of staunch opposition, the police will go ahead and make both Residency Road and Richmond Road one-ways within the next fortnight. The question is: Will this ease congestion? If the police are to be believed, it certainly will.

Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Chandrashekhar said that the route plan for the two new one-ways has been submitted to the government and a gazette notification is expected shortly.

The plan is: Considering Airport as the destination, entry of vehicles will be into Residency Road from Richmond Circle, right towards Shopper’s Stop junction at Mayo Hall, down to D’Souza circle and from there to Airport Road via the Lower Agaram Road. Vehicles will not be allowed on Residency Road in the opposite direction.

The way back from the Airport is through Richmond Road all the way upto Richmond Circle and vehicles will not be allowed in the opposite direction.

There are tangible benefits to this kind of an alignment. People rushing to the Airport from the northern, western and central parts of the city will not be held up by too many traffic signals.

The traffic congestion during pre and post-school timings at Cash Pharmacy Circle (due to Bishop Cotton Boys’ school) will considerably reduce in intensity.

The medians on both roads will be removed and vehicles moving in single direction can occupy the entire road.

The stop sign at Cash Pharmacy junction is unnecessary, as there is no oncoming traffic and can be eliminated. This will ease the congestion at the end of the Residency roadside descent ramp of the Richmond Circle flyover.

However, not everybody who is travelling is rushing to the airport. As a result of the one-way system, the status of a number link roads that connect Richmond and Residency Roads like Hayes Road, Convent Road, Museum Road, Brigade Road Commissariat Road — some of which are already one-ways — and others that are not, will also change.

This will cause inconvenience to many motorists who use these roads on a daily basis. It is not clear whether the BMTC have agreed to reroute the buses from and to the Shivaji Nagar hub that ply via St. Mark’s Road.

There is no guarantee that the one-way system will work because of the sheer volume of traffic on Residency and Richmond Roads.

A greater fear is that due to the one-way system, peak hour traffic will spill onto smaller roads in Richmond Town, Langford Town, Viveknagar, Ashok Nagar and Shanti Nagar. Finally, the Richmond multi-crore flyover will remain under utilised as always.