For anyone who’s battled traffic between Mahadevapura and Marathahalli during rush hour, the experience is less of a commute and more of a tactical survival exercise. Given this chaos, Bengaluru’s traffic police have introduced a fresh set of traffic rules, enforced from Monday, aiming to straighten the knots in one of the city’s most burdened corridors.
New Traffic Rules Enforced On Bengaluru’s Outer Ring Road
According to Hindustan Times, the focus of these new traffic rules is the segment between Karthik Nagar Junction and Kalamandir, a deceptively short stretch that’s long been a black hole for traffic flow. The design flaws here are structural: chaotic lane-switching, misused service roads, and the near-total absence of regulated merges. Add to that the thousands of vehicles pouring in from tech parks, gated communities, and arterial roads each day, and you have a crisis masquerading as routine.
To address this, the new traffic rules in Bengaluru are specific, directional, and strict. According to Deccan Herald, vehicles can no longer enter the Outer Ring Road from the Kalamandir side using the service lane adjacent to Jeevika Hospital, nor can they enter the service road from the ORR near the Yamaha showroom. Instead, if you’re heading from Chinnappanahalli Railway Gate towards Kadubeesanahalli or Devarabeesanahalli, you must join the service road at Jeevika Hospital and re-enter the ORR near the Yamaha junction.
If you’re on the Outer Ring Road from Mahadevapura and moving toward Whitefield or Varthur, you’re now permitted to take the service road at Kalamandir Junction and exit further ahead toward Kundalahalli and Varthur, according to the new traffic rules in the city of Bengaluru.
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How Will These Affect Commute?
On paper, these seem like small adjustments. But for regular commuters, they redraw the choreography of movement through this zone. These new traffic rules aren’t the city’s first stab at traffic control on the ORR. Over the past year, authorities have tried everything from restricting heavy vehicles during peak hours to rejigging merge points.
The Mahadevapura-Marathahalli section carries the weight of East Bengaluru traffic. This is a corridor hemmed in by IT parks like Bagmane World Technology Center and RMZ Ecospace, by schools, dense housing clusters, and malls, all of which discharge vehicles into the ORR in overlapping waves. Authorities are putting up signage and deploying additional personnel to direct traffic while the new system beds in.
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Still, these new traffic rules mark a more assertive tone from Bengaluru police, who are increasingly shifting from reactive to anticipatory interventions. Whether this particular tweak eases the Outer Ring Road’s long-standing agony remains to be seen. But for now, the city’s most congested corridor has a new traffic rules script, and lakhs of commuters are the cast.
Cover Image Courtesy: markuswinkler/Unsplash
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