Bengaluru Traffic: Could Hyperloop Help?

As part of our conversation as mentioned in Part One, some of the solutions did include things such as maintaining roads that provide airport connectivity through more than one road - like for instance, the road through Dobaspet, connecting through Doddaballapur. Or other direct roads to the airport instead of having to go through the city for people needing to go to the airport from other cities. This would not only make it quicker but also easier for a lot of people going to the airport. They wouldn’t be forced to have to go through Bengaluru, thus relieving some traffic density within the city.

There are a few things like this that can be done to ease traffic and distribute the density more homogeneously. Better connectivity for people leaving the city vs inside, intra-transportation is another thing. Better maintenance of ring roads, access to such public transport, and stuff like that. (Yes there’s the NICE road which is a boon for sure, as long as you’ve got your own vehicle.)

Well what then, do you make of the Hyperloop?

While the majority of the advantages of something like the Hyperloop lie in connecting far-off areas to one another, such as cities like Bangalore to Mangalore or Chennai or Mumbai, there definitely would be some advantages to it being used within the city. While connectivity through the Hyperloop from very few major points to the airport or major connections like city exits would be useful, for traffic completely within the city - it wouldn’t exactly be a good investment. Besides we do have a metro system.

To elaborate, we would have to build a whole slew of tunnels at varied levels beneath the ground to help connectivity just within the city, which of course would help make the traffic free-moving and streamlined but a whole slew of tunnels just for intracity transportation for individual vehicles to be loaded in one at a time would be a great waste of resources. And meanwhile, if it were for public transport like buses - they’d be similar to our metros except - again a lot more infrastructure for not the most benefits. So yes, wasteful. Unless, again particular points, rare/exceptional cases.

Furthermore, these are not regular tunnels. The Hyperloops require specific machinery and there isn’t a lot of room for compromising structural integrity. And given the recent history regarding our transport structures, may it be the metro pillar, the Tumkur-Bengalur Highway, or the Mysore Highway that hasn’t lived up to expectations, it would be safe to say the overall environment doesn’t seem to be very reliable. Which in itself is a whole topic of discussion. Turns out, people are ordered to do sub par work so they can keep billing on working damages and whatnot shit. Water logging is definitely a surefire way to ensure the tar keeps coming off, right?

Of course, Hyperloop is privately owned by a very external entity that seems to want the best, but at the end of the day, a lot of the work will have to be done by locals. So there’s that element in the mixture as well?