Traffic

Pilot working

Traffic problems in Whitefield or anywhere in Bangalore for that matter now are not news to any of us. Our quality of life has been affected heavily with no respite in sight as construction of massive apartments and offices continue. While I don’t have an answer for how we can stem the influx of traffic to Whitefield we can help ourselves somewhat with some short term solutions.

Mr Thejasvi is the new Inspector Traffic Police. In a pilot we ran at Hope Farm, we learnt many things.

1. BMTC buses do not stop at Bus Stops :). They stop at the intersection.
2. So passengers wait at Intersections
3. The next bus in the intersection stops behind and adjacent to it.
4. Now traffic is well and truly blocked.
5. So we tried to get the buses to stop at the official bus stop a few feet away by holding up signs. It took 7 mins to do it. 7 minutes.  And traffic flowed smoothly. Like a river.
6. But why isnt this already happening? Buses should stop at Bus Stops? Well, this is because the BMTC bus driver is incented by the number of passengers he ferries. Now why would he not get the same passengers at the Bus Stop?Because Private buses stop just before the bus stop and try to take passengers in their own buses thus cutting the pay effectively for the BMTC bus driver.

So this is one problem we are going to need to solve.

What we need:

• Just some passionate and committed volunteers are needed here. As you can see, Sampath stands alone supported occasionally by Anjali.  Our other groups are working well because of passionate citizens. A similar group needs to get together and take one issue at a time to solve. Hope Farm can be the first. Or this could be your opportunity to take on the issue closest to your place. Just write to us with 3-4 other names that you believe will support.