Risky rides around craters

Unprecedented in scale, ferocious in its destruction, the rains this season have exposed everything that is wrong with Bengaluru’s roads. Craters big enough to transcend beyond mundane definitions of ‘pot-holes’ have emerged on streets across the city. Getting the roads back to being remotely motorable will be mammoth task, requiring BBMP to work on a war-footing. Is the Palike up to it?

In Koramangala, HSR Layout, Sanjaynagar, Dasarahalli, virtually every corner of the city, the roads are now in tatters, turning nightmarish for motorists. The prospect of more punishing rains has only sharpened those dangerous edges. But beyond filling potholes, the Palike says it cannot undertake major repairs in incessant rains.

On war-footing

Remedial action ought to be on a war-footing. At least the intent is clear. BBMP Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad has fixed a 10-day deadline to fill all the potholes, mandating that the work be done quickly between 10 pm and 3 am every night.

But why have those pot-holes emerged in such huge numbers in the first place? The Palike topbrass blames the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) for what it calls the latter’s ‘irresponsible’ road-digging. BBMP wants the Water Board to fix the roads that it digs and leaves unrepaired for the rains to play spoilsport.

Maintenance contracts

Yet, pushed under the carpet in this inter-agency blame-game is a larger issue: Poorly executed, unscientifically designed road works that are deliberately kept below basic standards, ostensibly to aid the ‘repair’ contractors. Beyond numbers, the hasty pot-hole filling exercise is proof enough that the layers are designed to come off after the next big shower.

Any well designed road should survive at least five years without coming apart, points out M N Sreehari, a road engineering expert. “The poor quality of the construction is obvious. The intention is clear: To ensure that there are enough maintenance contracts,” he explains.

Procedural lapses

The pothole-filling drive, an exercise to temporarily make the city roads motorable, does not exactly follow the proper process. “The bitumen, sand, aggregate coat mix should be put in two layers and tamped before applying a seal coat. It should never come out. This is a primary school technique. But they will not do it,” says Sreehari.

Here’s how a pothole is tackled: The area to be repaired is cleared of any loose material or debris; the asphalt is then poured directly into the hole; once a two-inch base is applied, a tamping tool or shovel is used to compact the material in the hole; the two-inch base is reapplied and compacted in two inch increments until the repair area has been filled; a small crown is applied to the area to allow for additional compaction. This will allow further settling, once the area is opened to traffic.

Stagnation woes

Even hours after a downpour, water stagnates on several city roads eventually leading to potholes. The obvious reason is the clogged drains, not de-silted and cleared before the monsoons. But there is a fundamental road design issue that aids the water stagnation: Lack of cambers on most roads, a curve on the road surface that slopes from the centre to the edges. The camber helps water drain off quickly and not pool up in the centre of the road.

On Maruti Seva Nagar road in the city’s Eastern side, this unaddressed water stagnation had given rise to craters even before the monsoons. Says Vishwanath, an OMBR resident who frequently commutes on this road: “There is no layer of tar at all on this road. Gaping potholes have emerged. Motorcyclists, scared that they would fall into these craters, push their vehicles in water that covers everything.” Result: Massive traffic pile up on either end of this busy road.

Service road gaps

On the Outer Ring Road abutting these areas, the service roads are in poor shape. Untarred, discontinuous and pot-holed, the service roads near Bellandur and Kadubeesanahalli are witness to nightmarish traffic pile-ups when it rains during peak-hours. IT employees from tech-parks in the vicinity say the stopgap repair works have not made any difference.

Many potholes on this stretch have been filled by traffic policemen, says a shopkeeper near Kadubeesanahalli. However, this is only a stopgap method using construction debris and local masons. As a constable put in condition of anonymity, their priority is to get the vehicles moving and decongesting the roads.

Stopgap methods

Unless the intervention is well executed with proper design and filling material, the stopgap methods are bound to get perilous for the motorists. This is true of concretised roads too. In Thippasandra, the road leading to the BEML hospital is in such poor shape that a dozen half-hearted attempts to fill up the cracks have been futile. Motorists struggle to wade through the water, ever conscious of an accidental wrong move.

When it rains, lakhs of motorcyclists are often stuck on roads enveloped by sheets of water. Lurking under them are craters, poorly filled potholes, utility ducts, manholes and road-cuttings. As accidents mount, the potholes remain but the blamegame gets more intense.