Tejasvi Surya writes to Karnataka Deputy CM, urges immediate action to 'resolve Bengaluru’s mobility crisis'

Bengaluru: Highlighting commuter’s woes in the city, Bangalore South MP Tejasvi Surya on Wednesday requested Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar to convene a meeting with elected representatives and traffic management experts to “resolve Bengaluru’s mobility crisis”. 

In a letter to the Deputy CM, he wrote: “The traffic situation in Bengaluru is getting more distressing every passing day,” noting that the situation even on the weekends is “nightmarish”.

Highlighting the choked nature of the city’s roads, with private vehicles beyond road carrying capacities, he said that existing efforts to reduce private vehicles were inadequate, buses and the metro trains during peak hours are overcrowded, and application-based transport options are unreliable.

“Our footpaths are not pedestrian-friendly, and in most places are encroached by hawkers,” he wrote, also pointing to the “pathetic” condition of roads across the city and alleging that BBMP officials “turn a blind eye” to commercial developments in residential areas.

“In short, the quality of life is getting worse every day,” he wrote. 

Surya admitted that successive state governments across party lines had failed to provide the city the vision and leadership “it deserves” and called for drastic action with “war-like urgency” to address issues immediately.

Referring to Singapore and other “radical” solutions for the short-term, he also called for doubling down on investments into public transportation and said that each person owning a private vehicle would not work in a densely populated country like ours.

“Considering that implementing such drastic solutions require the consensus of the relevant stakeholders, I urge you to convene an urgent meeting with elected representatives and traffic management experts to discuss and implement effective solutions that can be unanimously supported and pushed forward without delay,” he wrote.