Bangalore IT Professionals 'Off-Road' To Reach Work: Totally Unnecessary? [Video]
Bengaluru is infamous for its traffic chaos and has recently been in the news for the poor condition of its roads. People seem to be so interested in the topic that content about Bengaluru’s bad roads rack up views online. A recent video shared on X (previously Twitter) shows motorcyclists moving slowly through a ditch and climbing up unpaved surfaces. These bikers, the caption says, are IT employees commuting to work. The clip has had over 1.5 lakh views so far. But, is it really what it looks like? Has the road here really turned into a nightmare for commuters? Let’s explore...
This video is from Bengaluru’s Panathur. We see a railway station in the background. An unpaved muddy pathway can be seen, with vehicles halted on it. Both two-wheelers and three-wheelers are waiting. A narrow ditch is present nearby, through which several two-wheelers are moving slowly. This looks like a shortcut used by these riders to get to the other side while others are still stuck on the unpaved pathway.
The path used by these vehicles has sharp gradients and slippery patches. The long line of vehicles and the narrow nature of the path are seen causing congestion, turning this into a major bottleneck. The person who shared this Tweet criticised the pathetic condition of this path and called out the chaos that these motorists had to go through to get to the other side.
So, what’s going on here? Well, this happened near the Panathur Railway Underbridge (RUB). The underbridge is now closed for repairs. This area had developed major waterlogging during the rainy season this year. More recently, the authorities closed this for repairs and asked commuters to take the alternate route. The Panathur RUB has long been a big choke point for commuters. It, however, isn’t their only route! Below is the alternate route that’s now being suggested by traffic police. Even Google Maps suggests this to anyone searching.
The alternate route is slightly longer and would make the commuting time go up slightly. The vehicles seen in this video are likely trying to bypass the same by riding through the unpaved, muddy patch. People from the place even say that the motorcyclists in this case are wading through private property to get to the other side. Such trespassing itself is illegal.
In this case, the X user seems to be putting the blame on the authorities for a ‘closed road’ causing inconvenience to commuters who refused to take the recommended alternate route and doing ‘off-road’ riding through private property to get to the other side, all in the hope of saving a few kilometers ... The actual intention behind sharing this video with the ‘this is the state of Bangalore roads’ narratives remains unclear for now!
We don’t intend to say that Bangalore is completely chaos-free. The city does have its own road and traffic problems. The one shown here isn’t one of them! Most of the IT companies are situated in East Bengaluru. The poor condition of the Outer Ring Road (ORR) and adjacent areas had recently made headlines.
The traffic congestions at many places inside the city is famous as well. The South Indian city is reportedly considering imposing a ‘congestion tax’ for solo drivers in busy corridors like the ORR, during peak hours. If implemented properly, Bengaluru could see the congestion ease in the upcoming months.