Metro or Retro?

Well the worst thing to happen after a tough commute to office and a long day at work is the commute back home! Bad roads and Traffic jams all over the place. Is there no way out? How do you expect when everybody wants to travel by their own personal vehicles. With close to 800 vehicles getting registered per day, road widening, flyovers, elevated highways and ring roads cannot really solve this issue. Well the issue is not only with the people, its just the lack of options which makes it more worse. The only public transport available is our very own BMTC buses which goes through the same crowded and bad roads which makes it kinda defeat the purpose. What is required at this point is an efficient mass transport option. If you thought Metro will solve this issue then take this – first phase will cover 33km only(so reach is a problem) and will be completed by 2012(Neither is it an immediate solution). Add to that we do not have a concept of a Central Business District, its more of a scaterred Business District. If there is one thing which can give immediate relief then its our very own Retro rails!

We do have good [if not great] existing rail network in the city. A similar proposal was floated some time back but nothing seems to have worked [Read more]. Well, what is existing as of now? Will it work as is and what needs to be improved? My two cents...

• Reach : Tracks and stations on almost all the corridors exist. Trains running at least during peak hours would suffice at this point. The traffic is high on some of the routes, but running 2-3 trains during peak hours on these routes seems feasible.
  

• Cost : No cost to lay tracks and no land acquisition! Some additional trains will be required. But I guess if the govt promotes it, railways might just be willing to cater as it can make quite revenue out of it! So may not be a huge cost.

• Stations : Facilities at some smaller stations need to be improved. Ticketing process must be speedened. Make passes and day passes available at various outlets. Parking facility must be made available at stations.

• Connectivity : Improve approach roads to the stations. Introduce short haul BMTC buses covering areas around the station. Even companies must be encouraged to run their buses from the station to their offices.

Well, this may not be the complete solution to the issue, but is surely a solution. In many cases, the journey by train might just not be the fastest means but surely would be more predictable. People will be sure of what time they reach office and home. And that I guess will make the office commute a lot easier. And yes, this is not an alternative to metro, but will just complement with the metro for a little longer haul travels within the city. To the title question of "Metro or Retro", I guess the answer would be "Metro plus Retro".

To E-city by Train

As a start, there are some trains which could be made use of right away. We did try to use the 572 Bangalore - Salem passenger to get to Electronic City. Started off from home to reach Bangalore city railway station by 7, paid 7 bucks for the ticket and boarded the train at 7:15 AM. Brief stops at Cantonment, Bangalore East, Byappanahalli, Belandur road, Carmelaram (sarjapur road) and reached Heelalige station by 8.20 AM [yup a 10 min odd delay due to a crossing at Byapanahalli]. A nice, small station with greenery all around is what this unheard station is all about. Heelalige is a small village around 1 km from Chandapura on the Hosur Road. The approach road is getting asphalted now and there is no means of transport from there as of now. Chandapura to E-city is a straight 7km stretch on the opposite of traffic during peak hours, so in all must not take more than 20 mins if you have conveyance. If the companies provide shuttle services, it hardly takes any time! Also ppl working in areas other than E-City on Hosur road can make use of this train. In the evening, the same train comes to Heelalige at 5:00 PM.

Personally I feel, people staying near Cantonment, Bangalore East and Byappanahalli will find this more useful even on the return journey. We are not very sure of work-places near Belandur and Carmelaram. But I guess even that must make sense if this is utilised. A dedicated train surely makes more sense, but for a start this is surely not bad. Train timings and some other useful trains can be found at our other post - Some Useful Trains.

Some useful Trains

We did discuss about the use of Trains for local commute in one of our post[Metro or Retro?]. A quick glance of the rail map in Bangalore makes you say "Not so bad"! Similar to the X shaped network of the upcoming Metro, there exists a much larger X shaped Retro Network which is grossly under-utilized for local transportation!! Starting from Kengeri/Bidadi and Yeshvantpur in West to Whitefield in the east, from Yelahanka in the north to Anekal in the south, there lies 100s of kilometers of tracks which hold great potential in solving a part of the city's traffic problems. Nevertheless a clever usage of existing trains can surely make a difference to the city's roads, for the time being.

To start with, a few existing trains could surely be used for local commute and more importantly for office commute during peak hours. Mentioned below are some of the trains which could be used right away.

1. City to Whitefield.


2. City to Yelahanka.


3. Yelahanka to City via Yesvantpur.


4. Whitefield to City.


5. City to Heelalige (Near E-City)

These are just a few trains which can be made use of. There are many more trains plying between these routes. For further information on trains visit TrainEnquiry. As mentioned in Metro or Retro?, it would still be great to have dedicated trains. Trains from Kengiri to Whitefield and Yeshwanthpur to E-city at least during peak hours will ease a lot of pressure on the roads and will give some predictability to the commuters.

A lot can happen over a coffee!

After a long tough day of meetings, client calls and staring at the monitor, we took a break. A break always meant eating some chat-pata stuff, bajjis, masala dosas[forget all about calories :-)], a nice filter coffee and just talk over something. All of our chats somehow always lead to our most favorite topic of discussion – Bangalore, the Silicon Valley and the living conditions here. We discuss about the deplorable conditions, the haphazard traffic, the huge infrastructure projects, increasing crime rates and the list just goes on…

Why is this city plagued with all these problems? Everyday, newspapers are flooded with articles on the bad condition of the city. Is this what the city is all about? Where’s the Garden city of India; One of the most accommodative cities, a city with a cosmopolitan outlook, a city of world class institutions and the hot n happening ‘IT’! None of it seems to be the news anymore. And who is responsible for all the mess – Citizens say it’s the authorities and authorities say its lack of civic sense and simple discipline among people. That’s true! It’s a deadlock and nobody wants to accept it. Everybody is happy blaming on the other person and themselves not doing anything. With this attitude, the future looks bleak. Without the strong will of everybody, no one thing can do wonders to the city!

And thus ends every coffee break of ours… but today was a little different. We did not end our discussion there. We just thought we'll discuss about it in a forum. Lets see if people think alike. Lets see if somebody looks into it and makes an attempt to change. We will, but will everybody realize! We always search for solutions as if we have all the power to implement them. We want to see if any of it actually makes sense and gets implemented. We want to understand the difficulties in implementing it and put it forward, so that people appreciate it and stop blaming. And so here we are with this blog. Going forward you will find all our discussions shaping up into new posts. Right from discussing the cause of the problem, to simple solutions for the people to complicated solutions which we don’t know how and who will implement. Its not like an update which you will find in the newspapers, its just our views on the problems and their solutions. If you are a person staying in Bangalore then you are exactly the person who will be able to relate to our discussions.

And like at the end of every break if you ask us as to why the hell on earth we are discussing about problems which we cannot solve – the only answer we both have is always - “For the sheer love of the city”.