Come closer

COME CLOSER
Bad traffic has forced some Bangaloreans who moved to the suburbs to shift back into town
The Times of India

TRUST Bangaloreans to work their way around every unpleasant traffic situation. Those who work from home and have moved to the suburbs have no cause for worry. But there are some who think the reverse is a good idea. So they’ve moved house from the suburbs back into the heart of town, to try and beat traffic woes.

Deepika Khaitan and her husband Vikram Maiya lived on a farm on Kanakapura Road until recently. Now they have moved to Richmond Town. Mainly because of traffic. Says Deepika, “It’s much more convenient now. If I want to watch a movie, I can reach the theatre in 10 minutes. At the farm, I’d have to plan a day in advance.”

Deepika who’d take 20 minutes to travel from Kanakapura Road to Bangalore Club three years ago, says it now takes an hour and a half. “Now, only if we leave after 9.30 in the night, can we reach in half an hour. There’s so much traffic.”

Another gain has been that her husband’s restaurant is a little over a km away now. “It’s a stone’s throw. Sometimes, I even walk up.”

Design professionals Vikram and Padmini Chandra work in Domlur but stay near Brookefields. They are now are looking for a place closer to their workplace. Again, the primary reason is traffic. “We are not really far away. The distance between home and work is less than 10 km. We used to take only 25 minutes to commute, now it takes an hour, or even more.”

Besides traffic, BPO van drivers drive rashly along the route, and with the roads being badly lit and the bridge at Marathahalli very narrow, Vikram Chandra finds it dangerous to commute.

Trainer Pratima Marwah and husband moved from their own apartment in Basavanagar to a rented place in Benson Town to beat traffic blues. Her teenaged daughter studies in Yelahanka, her son at a school on Kanakapura Road, her husband’s workplace is on Lavelle Road. The kids had to be picked up and dropped at their bus stops before she could reach her own workplace in Residency Road. Besides there were tuitions, club activities. Life was chaotic. She was moving around in circles. “I was constantly doing calculations around the car, traffic and time. Then my husband and I thought it best to move. Now my daughter is home by 4 pm. If she has tuitions, or Interact activities, it’s 5.30 pm. On a bad day, I’m home in 25 minutes. On a good day, much earlier. There are bottlenecks, but when I was in Basavanagar, it was bad traffic plus distance. Now, at least the distance is not crippling.” And even after coming home, she heads out if she needs to. Earlier, she’d just stay put.

Businesswoman Poornima B has an office at Whitefield, while she lived in Cooke Town. She too moved to Indiranagar to get closer to her workplace, so she could save on commute time.
So, even where there’s traffic, if there’s a will, there’s a way!