Sunday, January 25, 2009
Footpaths: Veritable minefields of Bangalore
Footpaths: Veritable minefields of Bangalore
By Express News Service
25 Jan 2009 08:22:00 AM IST
BANGALORE: BBMP Commissioner S Subramanya hit the bull's eye two months ago when remarked that "Only god can save the city's pedestrians." Saturday morning provided a bitter testimony to this gruesome fact. A bit too bitter, perhaps. The badly-maintained roads and broken pavements can send a chill down anyone's spine even without such extreme reminders.
Pedestrians are forced to enter the death zones where even motorists struggle to find space, as the space where they would have rather walked -- the footpath -- is almost non-existent in the city. And if they do exist, they end abruptly or are cluttered with everything except the pedestrian. During peak hours, the balancing act between road and sidewalk, can prove to be life-threatening.
While delivering a talk at Bangalore International Centre recently on urban transport planning, urban planning expert Madhav Badami pulled up the government for spending crores of rupees on the Metro Rail but not expending "a single penny" to create space for cyclists and pedestrians. He had also highlighted the fact that pedestrians did not contribute to congestion on roads nor did they benefit from motorisation "but were hugely affected adversely by both the factors."
The city's infrastructure development has been focused on the development of roads for motor vehicles but not for the pedestrians. Having waken up to this fact, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has constructed pedestrian subways and has proposed similar subways across the city. Apart from the pedestrian subways, the BBMP has also proposed to construct skywalks and bicycle paths on major roads, BBMP sources said. Zone-wise programmes to evacuate encroachments on footpaths and clearing of debris is in progress. The old stone slabs used for pavements are being given granite-finishing and works of renovating footpaths are under way, added sources. A study titled "Traffic and Transportation Policies and Strategies in Urban Areas in India" drives home the point that Bangalore is "pedestrian-unfriendly."
According to M N Sreehari, chairman, Traffic Engineers and Safety Trainers, Bangalore, ranks the garden city twelfth among the 30 surveyed cities on the "walkability" index.
Labels: infrastructure, traffic
Friday, January 09, 2009
Times of India, 9 Jan 09: Bangalore a 'heat island'
Bangalore has become heat island
9 Jan 2009, 0204 hrs IST, Jayashree Nandi, TNN
Bangalore : Bangalore is witnessing an alarming depletion of wetland areas and vegetation cover, according to a recent study by the Centre for Ecological Sciences of the Indian Institute of Science. It shows an increase of 1 to 1.5 degree in temperature in certain pockets of Bangalore that have seen intense urbanization.
According to lead researcher T V Ramachandra, there is almost an increase of 466% of building area or paved surface in the past three years and that is not allowing water to percolate through the soil. Of 200 tanks present in 1985, only 17 survive today, which means that the wetland area has decreased alarmingly. "The vegetation and amount of water bodies in a city have a direct relationship with local temperature. Bangalore is an urban heat island. The increase in emissions from transport, faulty architecture, lack of vegetation and wetlands are leading to these temperature changes," he said.
However, he did not attribute the chilly mornings this winter to the same phenomenon. "I checked the records and the winter temperature is almost the same, swinging around 12 degrees. But other issues like humidity and sudden heat waves could be a reflection of the increasing temperature or global warming," he added.
The report also points out that there has been an increase in flooding. Reclamation of lakes for various developmental activities has resulted in the loss of inter-connectivity in Bangalore district, leading to higher instances of floods even during normal rainfall.
LAKE LOSS
The decline in the number of water bodies in Bangalore is mainly due to unbridled and intense urbanization. Many lakes were encroached for illegal buildings (54%). Field surveys (during July-August 2007) show that nearly 66% of lakes are sewage fed, 14% surrounded by slums and 72% showed loss of catchment area. Lake catchments were used as dumping yards for either municipal solid waste or building debris.
9 Jan 2009, 0204 hrs IST, Jayashree Nandi, TNN
Bangalore : Bangalore is witnessing an alarming depletion of wetland areas and vegetation cover, according to a recent study by the Centre for Ecological Sciences of the Indian Institute of Science. It shows an increase of 1 to 1.5 degree in temperature in certain pockets of Bangalore that have seen intense urbanization.
According to lead researcher T V Ramachandra, there is almost an increase of 466% of building area or paved surface in the past three years and that is not allowing water to percolate through the soil. Of 200 tanks present in 1985, only 17 survive today, which means that the wetland area has decreased alarmingly. "The vegetation and amount of water bodies in a city have a direct relationship with local temperature. Bangalore is an urban heat island. The increase in emissions from transport, faulty architecture, lack of vegetation and wetlands are leading to these temperature changes," he said.
However, he did not attribute the chilly mornings this winter to the same phenomenon. "I checked the records and the winter temperature is almost the same, swinging around 12 degrees. But other issues like humidity and sudden heat waves could be a reflection of the increasing temperature or global warming," he added.
The report also points out that there has been an increase in flooding. Reclamation of lakes for various developmental activities has resulted in the loss of inter-connectivity in Bangalore district, leading to higher instances of floods even during normal rainfall.
LAKE LOSS
The decline in the number of water bodies in Bangalore is mainly due to unbridled and intense urbanization. Many lakes were encroached for illegal buildings (54%). Field surveys (during July-August 2007) show that nearly 66% of lakes are sewage fed, 14% surrounded by slums and 72% showed loss of catchment area. Lake catchments were used as dumping yards for either municipal solid waste or building debris.
Labels: environment
