Bangalore traffic police’s lane discipline programme lead to massive traffic jams.
If you wondered why the city’s central business district experienced more traffic jams on Monday morning than other days, the reason was this: A ceremonious beginning to the lane discipline programme by the Bangalore traffic police.
The programme, which began at 11am, was actually meant to spread awareness among motorists about the benefits of sticking to road lanes. Additional commissioner of police (traffic), MA Saleem, said, “The lane discipline introduced in the central areas of the city will help easy traffic flow by increasing the travel speed and providing comfort to vehicle users.”
Unfortunately, that never happened. Instead, it ended up causing more traffic jams. And, interestingly, the traffic jams were the doing of the Bangalore traffic police themselves.
The epicentre was Queen’s Statue Junction where MG Road, Kasturba Road and Queen’s Road intersect. But the problem of traffic jams spread to Anil Kumble Circle, Cauvery Arts and Crafts junction, Webb’s Junction and Trinity Circle – all these along MG Road. And the cascading effect was also experienced at seven other locations where the programme was launched – Basaveshwara Circle, Shivananda Circle, Bashyam Circle (Sadashivnagar), South End Circle, KR Road-Cubbon Road Junction, UCO Bank Junction near Forum Mall and Sony World Junction in Koramangala.
It began this way: Soon after the inauguration of the programme, for 20 minutes, the police stopped all traffic moving from Kasturba Road to Anil Kumble Circle/MG Road/Queen’s Road, and from Queen’s Road to MG Road/Lavelle Road/Kasturba Road, for police commissioner BG Jyothiprakash Mirji to flag off a motorcycle procession by the traffic police from Anil Kumble Circle to Queen’s Statue Junction. This was part of the programme’s inauguration. But bringing the traffic to a halt led to a gridlock on all sides of the two junctions. l Turn to p6
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