Authorities such as police and mall developers present their mutually agreed-upon short- and long-term traffic congestion relief measures to the Karnataka High Court.
The management of the mall, the city police, and other government agencies have mutually agreed to implement short- and long-term measures to ease traffic congestion around the mall at Byatarayanapura on Ballari Road in the city, as there have been no major violations found regarding the use of the parking area or noise regulations by Mall of Asia.
Following three rounds of deliberations, held as recommended by the court earlier, to find solutions for traffic congestion caused by mall visitors’ vehicles and to reduce noise level, the long- and short-term measures were submitted before the Karnataka High Court on Friday.
As of right now
The court was told that the temporary measures will be implemented for a period of 15 days starting on January 6 on an experimental basis in order to evaluate their effects.
Judge M. Nagaprasanna, who heard a petition filed by the mall’s management company, Sparkle One Mall Developers Pvt. Ltd., ordered all parties to prolong the mutually agreed-upon action plan and postponed the next hearing until January 30.
The petitioner-company had contested the validity of the prohibitory order issued by the city Police Commissioner on December 29 under Section 144 of the Cr.PC. On December 31, the court made it clear that the order would not prevent the mall from opening for business or allowing the public to enter.
Noise Level
The developers have agreed to reduce the noise level to the allowable limit. According to the proceedings of the deliberations held, the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board had found that the noise level around the mall measured at 67.61 dB L.Aeq (avg), as opposed to the limit of 65 dB L.Aeq (avg) during the day for commercial areas.
The Bangalore Development Authority has approved the development plan for 2,241 residential units, retail commercial spaces, office spaces, and multiplexes on an area of approximately 65 acres, according to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). The plan also includes a 13-acre mall.
A total of 3,488, comprising 2,029 (retail/commercial), 271 (multiplex), and 1,118 (office space), parking spaces are required. 2,324 parking spaces must be provided in total for the area (commercial retail space and multiplex) for which a partial occupancy was granted. According to the BBMP, surface parking must be allocated 5% of the entire development project area during the meeting.
Upon inspection, the BBMP discovered that 2,599 car parking spaces, including stack parking, were provided in accordance with standard procedure and that both basements were utilized for parking as intended. But according to the BBMP, some of the 225 surface parking spaces that were supposed to be used were instead used for landscaping.
Parking costs for motorbikes
The traffic police’s recommendation to lower the two-wheeler parking fee in order to incentivize people to park inside the mall’s parking area rather than haphazardly on nearby roads has been accepted by the mall developers. All vehicles, including taxis and autorickshaws, must enter and exit in accordance with the traffic police’s recommended traffic circulation plan.
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