The KR Pura-Baiyappanahalli metro line will most likely open by mid-July, latest by end of July, suggested Anjum Parvez on Friday, without confirming a date.
Anjum was addressing a gathering at the 'Better Bengaluru 2.0' conference organised by Corporates in Real Estate (CiRE).
He assured the gathering that although the growth of the metro in the city started late, the pace of construction has picked up massively, especially on the Outer Ring Road (ORR), to enable them to meet the goal of at least 317 kilometre of metro network by 2031.
BMRCL has set a target of operationalising 40 kilometre of metro network this year, 17 of which is already functional, he added.
He highlighted the need for a multi-modal integration across public transport systems and assured that the focus of the BMRCL includes transit-oriented development, having taken the line from Central Silk Board to the Airport as a pilot project.
Ashish Verma, Professor and Convenor of the IISc Sustainable Transportation Lab at the Department of Civil Engineering, IISc, presented a scientific approach to resolving transportation and mobility issues in the city. "We put public pressure on our elected representatives to give us more road capacity so we can enjoy this aspirational aspect of car ownership and usage. Therefore, in the last few decades, a majority of interventions have been road infrastructure-focused in Bengaluru," he said, adding that it has been the root cause for urban sprawl and a cycle of congestion in the city.
Ashish highlighted the lacking bus fleet in the city and the need to speed up the suburban railway network in the city. In his opinion, an internal metro ring corridor is a key solution to relieve the core city from traffic congestion as opposed to tunnel roads.
He called for a greater investment into sustainable transport modes and suggested the introduction of policy measures that will actively discourage road users from personal vehicle ownership and instead make public transport attractive to them. "We don't need a bottom-up approach which looks at an issue and a road infrastructure intervention. Rather, we need to look at a network impact and systems approach and a strong focus on how it will also mitigate development goals, which is decarbonisation and so on," he said.