The quickest and best solution to ease the burden on roads in Whitefield is to have suburban rail. Ideally, they should have begun before the road widening process, but it’s not too late – they can begin with whatever resources are available. The most effective way dealing with the problem, or even addressing it, is to increase the frequency of trains, for buses cannot defeat a traffic jam! However, with suburban rail, there is right of way. The pressure will be taken off the road.
However, this would mean halting Namma Metro construction work until suburban rail services are regularised. We don’t even need short loop services, for these are trains, not autos. We have five full-fledged services functioning from Bangarpet to Ramanagara. Make this 20. DEMU trains with high frequency need to run everyday. Now trains do not address last mile connectivity, but this can be overlooked for they can carry more people than the Metro, buses and other vehicles. Feeder bus services can be run from Kadugodi to Whitefield, Hoodi, etc. It can run perpendicular to the Metro route, so that it doesn’t perturb that alignment. The point is not to ease congestion on the roads and this certainly cannot happen through road widening. Traffic will only increase to fill up the new space. The aim is simply to move people.
For technical reasons, BMRCL may have to widen the road, which is unavoidable. They could, however, have gone underground from to prevent this road widening work between Baiyappanahalli to Whitefield, but it’s too late for that now. Any kind of Metro work will mean disruption of vehicular movement for the building viaducts and stations. The underlying aim, however, is to ensure that people can commute without ending up stuck in a single spot for hours. This needs political will, for all modes of transport must connect to one another, for the object, at the end of the day, is to move people from Point A to Point B. For instance, the feeder bus can be taken from Adugodi to Whitefield Railway station, where the commuter can hop on a train to Baiyappanahalli. From here on, we have the Metro to Majestic and various other parts of Bengaluru. Parking space be added at railway stations if necessary, so people can park their cars before they take a train. The first step is to stop metro work until the authorities implement suburban rail.
–Sathya Sankaran, transport expert
