BANGALORE
Gandhinagar 2nd Cross Road is not congested although, on occasions, vehicles halting before tourist offices cause some inconvenience to commuters.
Gandhinagar 2nd Cross Road plays an important role in the scheme of things in the area. Most vehicles that enter Gandhinagar touch this stretch — also known as Sri Y Ramachandra Road — at some point. Its width is never an issue, it never gets in the way of traffic movement, people say. What it experiences even during rush hour is always connected to congestion on the two major roads flanking it — Sheshadri Road and KG Road.
Talk about congestion and all fingers point at the travel agencies. The tourist buses driven in and parked here are to blame for jams, people allege. But that is not true at all, say travel agents.
“Tourist buses start coming in only after 8 pm and they disappear after 10.30 pm. At that time, these roads are deserted anyway. The buses never get in the way of rush hour traffic,” says Sridhar BN, an employee at a travel agency.
Due to heavy fines for parking violation, these agencies do not leave buses idling even for five minutes, he says.
Paucity of parking space dogs the bus service industry. “We are an integral part of the city’s economy. The government’s coffers benefit hugely from us. Despite that, there is no facility for us to park our vehicles,” says Rajesh B, representing another travel agency.
The travel agencies make do with tiny underutilised parts of Gandhinagar First Main Road and other small streets. If the streets are widened, there is danger of the newly-created space to be misused for parking. It is senseless to raze buildings for that purpose, people say.
“In the centre of the city, they have created the Freedom Park which is an utter waste of space. Had they given that land to us, we would have happily operated from there. That would have stopped people complaining against us,” says Rajesh.
A few residents, advocates and businessmen blame the travel agents for occupying the parking space. “Where do we park our vehicles if they leave their buses here all day? I have picked up fights with agencies many times. Something has to be done to resolve this issue,” says Raju S, an advocate.
“That is hard to do,” says Nagabhushan BM, a travel agent who has been operating out of this area for 20 years. “This is Majestic area, remember. How can they expect buses to stay out of here?”
But buses are not to blame for the congestion that develops during peak hours when the all-improved Sheshadri Road with its flyover and underpass gets jammed.
“Vehicles come in here to escape blocks on Sheshadri Road. Those trying to cross KG Road into BVK Iyengar Road towards Chickpet or Market have to wait endlessly on Gandhinagar roads. The problem lies elsewhere,” says Nagabhushan.
Kanakadasa Circle too manages well without a traffic signal. The junction further down near National Market too has been making do without it. This shows the stretch is without problems, locals say.
The talk invariably comes to the root cause of congestion – rise in vehicle population. “When human population was getting out of hand, they came up with birth control. Now, vehicle population needs a similar remedy,” says he.
People here have seen addition of flyovers, underpasses, parks, skywalks and pedestrian subways on the many roads around Gandhinagar. They deride them for being ill-planned.
“Subways are unusable, skywalks seem unnecessary, tedious,” they say. The flyover on Sheshadri Road that ends before Maharani’s College seems too small now. “They should have taken it beyond KR Circle... with time, all flyovers and underpasses will begin to look small in front of the burgeoning vehicle population,” says Nagabhushan.
Instead of widening, the Palike can tackle water-logging. “Rain causes havoc. The silt left right outside the drains flow back. Rain water thus remains on roads without entering the drains,” says Chandru B, a businessman.
Water-logging and debris lying by the roadside affect traffic movement. These issues have to be attended to. People cannot easily forget a father and son who were crushed under a falling tree not long back.
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