Two hours for 16 km, thanks to one broken-down bus

It took me over 2 hours to cover just 16 km yesterday! All thanks to a bus breaking down near #Ecospace Flyover!
Since I didn’t have any #carpool partners today, I had all the time in the world to mentally map every choke point on my daily commute.
The #Traffic Chokepoints!
1. Getting out of the tech park - On a bad day, this alone takes 5+ minutes, before I even reach the main road.
2. Signal with #potholes - The Brookfield signal Welcomes with deep potholes. Even God can't solve Bengaluru's Pothole problem!
3. Bagmane Tech Park - Multiple back gates on a narrow lane, a perfect recipe for gridlock. Wonder how the government permits such massive projects, even without planning basic infrastructure like Roads!
4. #Railway crossing - This one is my favorite. If it’s closed… say goodbye to the next 10–15 minutes
5. Service lane shuffle - We love to complicate our lives; at times, Traffic police do the same, by abrupt route changes! At a minimum, it takes 5 additional minutes to touch ORR every day
6. Kalamandir junction - The Gateway to #Whitefield! Buses parked randomly, vehicles turning left to enter Whitefield, and a ‘To Let’ building occupying critical space. Wonder why the government can't acquire the building and widen the junction!
7. Kodibisanahalli Metro station (opp. Adobe) - Thanks to Metro construction, everything slows down. Eventually, all metro stations would become bottlenecks, thanks to reduced width, vehicles parked to pick up and drop off passengers!
8. Cessna to Ecospace flyover - Bumper to Bumper traffic awaits, anytime! With thousands of vehicles entering and exiting tiny service lanes across massive tech parks, what else can we expect? Sadly, the government is still giving permission for more construction, even when they can clearly see the current infrastructure is crumbling!
9. #Sarjapur Road U-turn stretch - Battling all this, one enters Sarjapur Road, only to find one stuck for over a km, to take the Kasavanahalli U-turn! Funny part, now the Police have installed a Signal at the U-turn, instead they could have installed the signal at the Junction and let people directly enter the road, but there is no fun in Straight lines!

And if luck’s not on your side, some vehicle will inevitably break down en route, amplifying the mess.

One of my regular carpool partners used to say something that feels almost philosophical now:
“Don’t be happy if you cross a few bottlenecks quickly… the law of averages will catch up — you’ll be stuck somewhere else.”

This isn’t just my commute, it’s the story of thousands in #Bengaluru every single day.
#UrbanPlanning can’t keep playing catch-up with population growth. We need better traffic management, last-mile solutions, and smarter traffic planning, not just more fake promises.