Agenda ABIDe - ‘Big 10’ to city’s rescue

Agenda ABIDe - ‘Big 10’ to city’s rescue
BENGALURU


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An advisory body appointed to find solutions to Bengaluru’s myriad problems has recommended that the IT hub’s 10 major arterial roads — the Big Ten — be converted to six lanes and free of signals.
Participants at the quarterly review meeting of Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure Development (ABIDe) held on Thursday which went on for a fractious and heated four hours, took far reaching decisions that will transform road infrastructure, traffic integration and transport in this city of 8 million. Sources, who attended the meeting told Deccan Chronicle that 10 road corridors — Hosur Road, Sarjapur Road, HAL Airport Road, Old Madras Road, Bellary Road, Magadi Road, Tumkur Road, Mysore Road, Kana kapura Road and Bannerghatta Road — will see a complete makeover.

“We have studied the 10 roads and identified the bottlenecks. We will construct underpasses, roundabouts, turns in T-junctions, footpaths and widen the existing four-lane roads to six,” the sources added. “Roads will go up to the nearest towns such as Whitefield on Old Madras Road, Electronic City on Hosur Road, Kengeri on Mysore Road. A Big Ten Bus Service will also operate on point-to-point basis,” sources added.

The Big Ten bus services will be supplemented with Namma Bengaluru Hover Service which is a hop-on, hop-off services which run clockwise and anti-clock wise around the central business district.

“The price of this services will be around Rs 5 and it will take off on January 27th,” he said. BIA CONNECTIVITY The ABIDe meeting saw heated discussions on connectivity to Bengaluru International Airport.

“The South-Western Railway has a line running almost upto BIA after Yelahanka. The gap is 6 km, so we suggested that buses ply from the railway station to BIA. Railways must increase frequency of trains, start two more routes from eastern and western parts of the city,” the source said.

Single roads will be converted to four lanes. On the eastern sector the route will be: Whitefield, Old Madras Road, Budigere, Bengaluru International Airport and from Western side, Nelamangala, Hesarghatta, BIA. Work will be taken up immediately by the public works department. NO FINAL TAKE ON HSRL The fiasco involving High Speed Rail Link continues with no final decision yet. “The ABIDe members are seeking explanation from authorities on the economic and user viability,” the source said. OTHER DECISIONS Apartment association and commercial building managements will be penalised if they don’t provide parking for visitors’ vehicles. “Vehicles parked on roads take up space. Checking is being carried out at malls, hotels, post Mumbai terror attacks. Because of this, vehicles are piling up on the road,” the source added.

All major malls and commercial buildings which attract high density traffic on to roads could put up ramps on the road to inside the premises.

Convener of ABIDe and parliamentarian Rajeev Chandrashekar said: “All stake holders BBMP, BDA, BWSSB, BMRC, BTP, BMTC among others made presentations on the work progress. We achieved 70 percent of work allocated. All the initiatives suggested in previous ABIDe meetings have been met 100 per cent. We have chalked out a core plan, a blueprint for the city. We suggested new legislation for Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike and will campaign for direct election for Bengaluru Mayor. All these deliberations have been put on bengaluruvedike.org.”