The Bengalureans waste half of their time in traffic signals and junctions Each signal at over 30 junctions cause about ten minutes delay in travel time during peak time between 9:00 am to 12:00 pm and 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm. According to Indian Road Congress rules, maximum signal cycle should be 180 seconds, but on Bengaluru over 30 junctions have over 200 seconds.
As Bengaluru has grown leaps and bounds, its problem has multiplied in general and with traffic in particular. Although the traffic department has put enough men to control and clear traffic, still easing traffic in these 30 worst signals is almost impossible task. During peak hours, each signal from the list halts vehicles movement more than 200 seconds against 60 seconds.
According to Indian Road Congress guidelines, during the peak hours the cycle of traffic signal shall not exceed more than 180 seconds, but for Bengaluru traffic department it does not matter to stretch signal cycle timings at any given point of time.
“The public time is wasted in these signals and authorities like, BBMP which is custodian of road and traffic department which regulates the traffic rule do not bother about public time loss,” said MN Shreehari, Mobility Expert.
To name a few signals, Devagowda Petrol Bunk Junction in Banashankari has highest number of traffic signal cycle with 285 seconds. The trend is followed by Sony World Junction in Koramangala with 265 seconds. Similarly, UCO Bank Junction in Koramangala has 260 seconds, HSR Layout, 14 Main junctions has 255 seconds, BEL Circle Junction has 250 seconds, Ashoknagar Cooley Circle with 245 seconds, JDS Nursing Home Junction with 240 seconds, Shivananda Circle in Highgrounds and Havanur Circle in Basaveshwaranagar has 240 seconds of signal cycle. Like this there another 20 more traffic signal which has over 200 seconds of signal cycle and cause delay in travel time.
When Newsable called Traffic Commissioner R Hitendra for his reaction he said, the headache of junction improvement to clear the traffic at the earliest dose not come under his purview. “I will not take responsibility for this as BBMP has to do the job. The road belongs to them and we just install signal and regulate traffic,” he said.
BBMP Executive Engineer, Traffic Engineering Cell, Nadeesh who is working on skywalk projects to ease traffic and ensure pedestrian safety said, traffic junction improvement is multi organisational approach. The transport department, traffic department, BDA all have to come on single platform for discussing and take up the development work.
“The problem with City is everyday over 1000 new vehicles are added and hence it is becoming difficult to control traffic. We will also write to transport to do something about new vehicle registration and also to do away with old vehicles in phased manner,” he said.
