Manhattan, Marathahalli

What would it take to make a Manhattan out of Marathahalli?

(This article appeared first on HalliNews - my Marathahalli focused substack)

Many of us have traveled abroad and marveled at the orderly flow of traffic, relatively quiet streets, and a general sense that things are working as they should.

And then we look outside our window from our high floor apartments in premium buildings like Purva Riviera and see..gridlock, wrong-way driving, loud honking, and a general sense that Marathahalli is an unlivable hellhole.

What Makes Marathahalli Such a Basketcase?

Only Arterial Roads

Marathahalli is served by a few arterial roads — ORR, Old HAL Airport Road (aka Varthur Road), and Graphite India Road — to name the major ones.

To go anywhere within Marathahalli and elsewhere, you have to hit the arterial road. These arterial roads have the misfortune of being STROADS = Streets + Roads.

(The term STROADS was coined by the urban planning blog StrongTowns.)

This means that not only are they used for through-traffic like Roads, they are also commercial hubs with restaurants, shops, and stores with a lot of slow moving traffic and pedestrians. In other words, these roads support street level activity on top of their other function of delivering high volumes of traffic from one area to another.

Braindead Traffic Shaping

On certain routes, it is unnecessarily hard to make U-turns or right turns.

For example, if you are traveling from East to West on Varthur Road (aka HAL Old Airport Road) and you want to turn right at Marathalli Bridge to reach the ORR, you simply cannot.

Instead, you have two choices.

1. Travel about 1km round trip to a U-turn ahead on Varthur Road, then turn back to reach Marathahalli Bridge, then make a left to reach the ORR.
2. Take the underpass near Nandini Milk Parlor to reach the other, then drive the wrong way for a short distance, then turn right into a dense commercial area after Kanti Sweets, then make a left and another left, then make a U to reach ORR. Option 2 is shown below.

A map depicting Option 2 above

As a Result

As a result, traffic in Marathahalli moves at snails pace during rush hour, frequently gets choked if a large vehicle like a BMTC bus breaks down on an arterial road, and is notorious for people traveling the wrong way to avoid these onerous traffic flows devised by cops and NGOs making the best of a very badly designed road network.

In fact, Marathahlli has earned the epithet of Bangalore’s Parking Lot because of the frequency of traffic jams in the area.

What To Do About It?

First, from the above discussion, it should be obvious that relying on arterial roads to carry traffic to and through different parts of Marathahalli is the Original Sin of urban planning which needs to be first alleviated.

Second, we need to respond to the kind of mixed traffic we see on Indian roads — two- and three-wheelers claiming as much road surface as four-wheelers and larger. Instead of blindly implementing traffic patterns appropriate for more a homogenous mix of vehicle types, we should create solutions for the sort of vehicle mix we currently have on our roads.

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Third, we must ensure that our arterial roads are as free as possible from parked, waiting, or stalled vehicles.

Lastly, we must come together as a community to support and push the local traffic police to enforce penalties on rule breakers. Let’s face it — after seventy plus years of independence, relying on people’s good faith and conscience to make them follow the rules has not worked. We need to adopt the stick after decades of carrots.

So, what would these changes look like?

Relieving Arterial Roads

1. Flex Roads: On Varthur Road, during the morning rush hour, the West bound side of the road gets clogged while the East bound side is relatively empty. During the evening rush hour, the situation reverses where the East bound side is packed while the West bound side is empty. Due to the presence of a median, is it not possible for traffic on the clogged side to use the free lanes on the other side of the road. Removing the median and replacing it with plastic barricades which can be moved to assign one lane on the empty side to the congested side could help move more traffic faster through the area.
2. “Griddify” the inside roads: The Original Sin of Marathahalli was not implementing a full grid layout for the region thereby causing all traffic to use arterial roads for all movement. While we cannot hope to now go back and create perfect grids, we can and must connect as many of the inside roads with each other so that people can travel within Marathahalli without ever touching the arterial roads. Here is an example. The circles represent opportunities for roads to be connected with each other. Griddifying the inside roads would greatly ease traffic in Marathahalli and make it a Manhattan like model for other areas in Bengaluru.

Griddify the Inside Roads of Marathahalli

Design for India

India is a middle to low income country. There is huge variation in the speeds and maneuverability of vehicles on Indian roads. So, we need to design our roads to support the kind of traffic actually on our roads rather than aping road designs in other countries which may have limited applicability in our context.

1. Cutovers for Two-wheelers: Given the poor design of Halli roads, it is to be expected that people make the optimal personal choice of obeying traffic rules only when feasible. Vehicles going the wrong way is a symptom of poor planning, not the cause. Still, to reduce the need for wrong way driving by two-wheelers, I propose creation of cutovers from one side of the road to the other at regular intervals of say 500 meters. See the example below. The diagonal white line would allow traffic

2. Ban Certain Slow Traffic During Rush Hour: Slow moving traffic like tractor trailers should be banned from plying during rush hour between 7am to 11am and 5pm to 8pm. These vehicles move at a much slower speed than other traffic and cause faster traffic to have to work their way around them

Enforce Parking Hygiene

1. Implement and Enforce “No Parking/No Waiting” Rules on Arterial Roads: Both Varthur Road and Graphite India Roads lose valuable road space to vehicles parked on the side of the road. Arterial roads should be declared “No Parking/No Waiting” zones with immediate and painful fines for vehicles stopped on the side of such roads. Clogged arteries are never acceptable — not in your heart and not in our cities.
2. Monetize Parking: Allow commercial and apartment buildings to rent parking spots to anyone who wishes to park their vehicle off main roads.
3. Give Sidewalk and Frontage Enforcement Rights to Owners: By law, allow property owners to enforce parking and clear roadways rules in front of their building.

Civic Partnership

1. Escalation Matrix: Have an escalation matrix which allows traffic complaints from certain interested parties, such as building managers and superintendents, to be actioned quickly and with the presumption of correctness. So, if a building manager complains about wrongful parking in front of their building, it is assumed that the vehicle was wrongly parked there and will be fined on the basis of photographic/camera evidence.
2. Interconnects Between Buildings: Encourage neighboring buildings to allow pedestrian and vehicular traffic between each other through interconnects to reduce the load on arterial roads. Apps like MyGate can be used to ensure that some oversight is maintained in who uses which interconnect.
3. Enforcement: Civic groups have to create an environment where traffic enforcement becomes the norm and no special treatment is sought or given.
4. Course Correction: Since traffic and needs of the public are constantly evolving, we must have a regular forum where the police, civic authorities, and residents meet and update any policies and programs designed to improve the quality of life in Marathahalli.

Conclusion

Urban planning in Marathahalli has for years been neglected by the BBMP though it is sits in close proximity to probably the most valuable mile of real estate in India — namely, the IT corridor on the Outer Ring Road.

We need to do better so that Marathahalli ceases to be the unlivable hellhole referred above and becomes a great place to have and raise a family.

While the above suggestions cover a lot of territory, they are not exhaustive. Others may have better ideas to make Marathahalli Livable Again. Instead of closing our eyes and ears to the deteriorating situation in the area, we should take up the challenge of fixing what can be fixed by ourselves and agitating for what needs governmental action to rectify.