Traffic congestion continued to haunt state capital through 2024

India's Silicon Valley Bengaluru's infamous traffic snarls continued through 2024. State government has come up with an ambitious plan of constructing tunnel roads, elevated corridors and underpasses to tackle persistent traffic congestion.

- AKNISREE KARTHIK @Bengaluru

India's Silicon Valley Bengaluru's infamous traffic snarls continued through 2024. State government has come up with an ambitious plan of constructing tunnel roads, elevated corridors and underpasses to tackle persistent traffic congestion. However, mobility experts repeatedly say these big-ticket projects will only move vehicles, but not people.

They argue that it will only shift traffic congestion from one point to another and will not solve problems. Bengaluru already has many such flyovers and underpasses, which were aimed at solving congestion, but failed. Yet the announcements of one infrastructure project after another indicates that the government is hardly listening.

Coming to the public transport, Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) added many new buses, including the e-buses, however the total fleet is just over 6,000, while the Transport Minister himself said the city needs 10,000 buses to serve the growing mobility demands. In contrast, the number of private vehicles in Bengaluru kept adding, now standing at a whopping 1.2 crore.