India's crumbling cities: Bengaluru Metro eased traffic but problems remain

Bengaluru used to be a Garden City where people enjoying walking. Now they avoid it because there are so few pavements

Known in happier times for its clement climate, Bengaluru is now synonymous with gridlock. The roads teem with 8.5 million vehicles, most of them scooters. The speed of a car on the Outer Ring Road during the rush hour slows down to around 5 km per hour – the speed of a person walking. Worse is to come. 

Over the next decade, another four million vehicles are expected to add to the traffic nightmare. The Revised Master Plan 2031 put out by the Bangalore Development Authority in 2017 said almost 12 million residents already waste 600 million man-hours in traffic