SATURDAY MORNING FEVER

SATURDAY MORNING FEVER
Come Saturday morning and there are more bottlenecks on the city roads than usual.
The Times of India

IF most offices, schools and colleges have a five day week, ever wondered why it takes longer to commute on a Saturday morning?

It’s a funny phenomenon, rather unique to Bangalore, says well-travelled businessman Madhu R. “During week days it takes me 40 minutes to travel from JP Nagar to MG Road, but on Saturdays it takes an hour. I’ve never understood it,” he says.

In cities like Mumbai and Delhi, people tend to stay indoors on weekend mornings. But in Bangalore, come Saturday morning and everybody’s out, says senior executive Ashwin J. “The nine to 10 am traffic is actually okay, but after 10 and till about 12.30 pm it’s madness in areas like JP Nagar, Jayanagar, Koramangala, Yeshwantapur, certain parts of Malleswaram and sections off MG Road,” says marketing executive Prathna Davis, whose office works a half-day on Saturdays.

“Abroad they go out to the country on Saturday but in Bangalore, everybody’s out looking for bargains,” laughs housewife Gina Herman. “I do too. It’s the only day I can get my husband to drive us out and we start the day early. I spend the whole morning buying stuff for the week.” “It’s also to do with the work culture. Bangalore just doesn’t have a 9 to 5 working system. People use their Saturday mornings to catch up on everything, and shopping is the mainstay. We can’t do any shopping during the week,” says software engineer Karuna H.

“But some of us also use this day not to cook breakfast, and dig into some of our city breakfast specials like like masala dosa and idlis,” laughs Gina. “Which is why it’s the shopping areas with their eating outlets that act as bottlenecks for traffic,” says Ashwin. “We definitely need more policemen out on Saturdays to man shopping areas. Parking is haphazard and people keep obstructing traffic flow by turning left, right and centre. I have seen one driver even go in circles before he decided where he wanted to go,” says media person Nathan T.

Says traffic expert M N Sreehari, “The work culture in Bangalore is such that everybody’s working all the time. Many offices work on Saturday, and while one expects the traffic to be less dense, it is actually only marginally so and gets compounded by the bottlenecks.”

It’s going to get worse, says architect Arshad Haroon: “The present malls are already overflowing on Saturday mornings and it’s only a matter of time before the city central ones too start filling up earlier on Saturdays. There’s yet another coming up in Ulsoor. This is going to create a huge bottleneck for people from Indiranagar and surrounding areas who use this road. God bless Bangalore.”