Police suggest big-ticket infra projects to end traffic snarls

The Bengaluru Traffic Police have come up with a long wishlist of road infrastructure projects to tackle the city’s notorious traffic congestion. The list proposes 20 new flyovers, 51 underpasses, widening of 85 roads and junction-improvement work at 539 spots in the city.

These proposals, which require investments running into hundreds of crores, have been compiled into a 570-page report with the title ‘Compilation of various works which are require (sic) to be undertaken by various civic agencies in Bengaluru City.’ It was submitted to the state government earlier this month. The projects themselves were proposed by senior officers from traffic police stations across the city.

The exercise seeking suggestions from on-the-ground officers was commissioned by IPS officer P Harishekaran during his tenure as the city’s additional commissioner of police (traffic). Harishekaran was transferred to the Karnataka State Reserve Police as IGP recently.

The report, a copy of which is available with ET, is the first of its kind.

While government agencies such as the Bruhat Bengaluru Manahagara Palike, Bengaluru Development Authority and Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation have always dictated infrastructure projects for the city, the traffic police – whose responsibility is to manage traffic and who take a larger share of the blame for Bengaluru’s poor driving conditions – have remained a silent spectator.

Although top traffic officers have aired displeasure about not getting to have a say in road infrastructure projects, Harishekaran was the first to take it forward, at least in the form of such a report.

What the report brings is a groundlevel understanding of traffic bottlenecks: from shifting bus bays and removing branches of old trees to clearing water-clogged roads and filling up potholes, the list goes into the micro causes that hamper movement of vehicles and pedestrians. Stressing that traffic management will become more challenging in future, the report calls for a dedicated government agency to address traffic issues in the city.

The traffic police are also suggesting infrastructure works as they are at the receiving end of the failures in planning and design of civic bodies, pointed out Urbanist Ashwin Mahesh. “Everyone has their view on what needs to be done. But all proposals should be part of the master plan,” he said.

Urban transport planner Pawan Mulukutla said that while the report is purely a point of view of the traffic police, it does not subscribe to the tenets of urban planning. “For the traffic to move, more road space is what is required. But that will not solve the problem. Every project or street management should be looked at from three parametres: pedestrians, air quality and climate resilience.”

Ashish Verma of IISc’s civil engineering department said that while ground-level inputs are necessary, the police may not have the technical capability to prepare city-level plans. The right methodology would be a combination of a bottom-up and topdown approach.

On how seriously the traffic police’s report will be taken, the BBMP said that not all proposals would be taken up. “Depending on the availability of funds, we will prioritise the projects,” said BBMP commissioner Manjunath Prasad.