Bengaluru, once a quiet city known for its parks and pleasant weather, has transformed into one of India’s largest urban sprawls. With its booming IT industry, start-ups, and educational institutions, the city has become a hub of innovation, attracting people from all over the country. However, this growth has also resulted in a steep rise in vehicular traffic, causing unprecedented congestion on Bengaluru’s roads. In an attempt to address these traffic woes, the city has seen the construction of multiple flyovers and underpasses. Yet, the impact of these solutions has been limited, and traffic congestion remains a persistent issue. The real answer to Bengaluru’s traffic problems lies in grade separators, a more suitable infrastructure solution that takes into account the city’s unique geography and urban dynamics.
Bengaluru’s Unique Geography
Unlike Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata, Bengaluru is an inland city, and this geographical distinction matters more than it appears. Coastal cities like Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata have a natural limit to their growth on one side due to the coastline, which restricts urban expansion in that direction. Consequently, these cities have developed their road networks in a more linear manner, allowing for infrastructure solutions like flyovers and underpasses to be more effective.
In contrast, Bengaluru has no such geographical constraints. It is a landlocked city, with urban sprawl occurring in all directions. This difference is often overlooked by urban planners, many of whom are drawing on outdated models from colonial-era planning in coastal cities like Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata. These models, while suitable for cities with coastlines, fail to account for the multidirectional growth pattern that characterizes Bengaluru. This oversight is critical and is leading to the implementation of inappropriate infrastructure solutions in the city.
The Problem with Flyovers and Underpasses
Flyovers and underpasses have been the go-to solution for many urban planners in India to ease traffic congestion. However, their implementation in Bengaluru has not been effective for several reasons:
- Limited Impact on Congestion: Flyovers and underpasses are designed to provide quick fixes for specific traffic choke points. While they can reduce congestion at certain intersections, they often push the problem further down the road. This means that instead of solving the overall traffic issue, these structures merely displace congestion to another area, leading to bottlenecks elsewhere.
- Promoting Uncontrolled Development: In Bengaluru, flyovers and underpasses have unintentionally led to uncontrolled urban development in their vicinity. Once a flyover is built, real estate developers move in quickly, leading to commercial and residential expansion around the newly decongested area. This, in turn, brings more traffic to the region, negating the initial benefits of the flyover. Because Bengaluru can expand in multiple directions, any infrastructure that reduces congestion in one area inadvertently triggers further development, creating a cyclical problem of congestion.
- Space Constraints: Flyovers and underpasses take up significant amounts of land, which is a precious commodity in a densely packed urban center like Bengaluru. Building more of these structures would further encroach on public spaces, reducing greenery and making the city even more congested. Bengaluru’s rapid expansion and rising real estate prices mean that the cost of constructing such large structures becomes prohibitively expensive, with diminishing returns on investment.
- Disruption During Construction: The construction of flyovers and underpasses often causes massive disruption to traffic patterns, sometimes for years. In a city like Bengaluru, where traffic congestion is already a major issue, these disruptions create further chaos and inconvenience for residents.
Why Grade Separators Are a Better Solution
Grade separators, which allow roads to intersect at different levels without the need for flyovers or underpasses, offer a more sustainable and long-term solution to Bengaluru’s traffic problems. Here’s why:
- Adaptable to Bengaluru’s Multidirectional Growth: Unlike flyovers, which are designed for linear city expansion, grade separators can accommodate traffic flow from multiple directions. Bengaluru, as a city without natural geographic limits like a coastline, expands in all directions. Grade separators can manage traffic from these various routes more effectively by allowing smoother transitions between different levels of roads, ensuring that vehicles do not stop unnecessarily at intersections. This will help ease congestion over a larger area rather than focusing on isolated choke points.
- Minimizing Urban Disruption: Grade separators require less space and cause less disruption to existing infrastructure compared to flyovers and underpasses. By elevating or lowering roads strategically at intersections, they can reduce the need for large-scale demolition or land acquisition. This is particularly crucial in a densely packed city like Bengaluru, where available land is limited, and green spaces are already under threat.
- Better for Traffic Flow Management: One of the most significant advantages of grade separators is their ability to manage traffic flow in a more systematic and controlled manner. Flyovers and underpasses tend to serve as quick-fix solutions for specific points of congestion, but they don’t address the broader traffic management needs of the city. Grade separators, on the other hand, can improve traffic circulation across a wider area, reducing bottlenecks and ensuring that traffic moves more smoothly throughout the city.
- Reducing Development Pressure: By implementing grade separators rather than flyovers, the city can mitigate the unintended consequences of rapid commercial development. Because grade separators do not create isolated pockets of decongestion in the same way that flyovers do, they are less likely to trigger the kind of uncontrolled real estate expansion that often follows the construction of flyovers. This means that the benefits of reduced congestion can be sustained over the long term without leading to a new surge in traffic.
The Legacy of Outdated Urban Planning Models
One of the key reasons for Bengaluru’s current traffic woes lies in the legacy of outdated urban planning models. As noted earlier, much of the city planning in India still draws from colonial-era policies that were designed for coastal cities like Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata. These cities, which were the major hubs during British rule, developed their road networks in response to their unique geographic constraints, particularly their coastlines. However, the same principles have been applied to inland cities like Bengaluru, which have entirely different geographical and developmental dynamics.
For example, the urban development policies followed in the coastal metros prioritized linear road networks due to the presence of the sea on one side. Bengaluru, on the other hand, expands in all directions, necessitating a more holistic and flexible approach to infrastructure planning. Unfortunately, many of the city’s current planning officers and urban development officials continue to rely on the same outdated models that were developed for coastal cities, leading to a mismatch between infrastructure solutions and the city’s actual needs.
Time for Bengaluru to Wake Up
Bengaluru’s urban planning officials need to break free from the shackles of outdated colonial-era city planning models and recognize the unique requirements of the city. The one-size-fits-all approach, where solutions from coastal metros are transplanted to Bengaluru, is doing more harm than good. The city’s planners need to adopt a forward-thinking, context-sensitive approach that takes into account Bengaluru’s distinctive geography, population growth, and traffic patterns.
Grade separators offer a more intelligent and adaptable solution for the city’s traffic woes, one that can manage traffic flow without triggering uncontrolled development or worsening congestion in other areas. With the right vision and planning, Bengaluru can still overcome its traffic challenges and build a road network that meets the needs of its rapidly growing population.
The time has come for Bengaluru to rethink its urban planning strategies and embrace solutions that are tailored to its unique context.