The Most Predictable Traffic Jam in Bangalore

It is 9:45 on a Tuesday morning. The signal at Yemalur is green in my favour. I am in the left lane, indicator on, waiting to turn onto Old Airport Road towards the city. Between me and that turn is an auto driver who wants to go right — towards Marathahalli — and has decided that my lane is as good a place as any to wait. I honk. He turns around and starts abusing me.

I sat there and said nothing. Not because he was right. Because it was 9:45 on a Tuesday morning, and I had already done the math on what engaging with an auto driver at Yemalur signal costs you in time and blood pressure. So I waited. He eventually moved. I turned left, four minutes later than I should have, and filed it away with every other morning at this junction.

This has been my commute for four years.

The Junction

Yemalur signal is a T junction at the meeting point of Yemalur Main Road and Old Airport Road. It serves a significant chunk of the traffic moving between central Bangalore and the office corridors of Whitefield, Outer Ring Road, and Bellandur. Every morning, people who live where I live and work where most of Bangalore works pass through this junction. And every morning, it fails them in the same predictable ways.

The problem is not the auto driver. The problem is that nothing about this junction is designed to prevent what he did. No physical lane dividers. No markings of any consequence. No enforcement. So vehicles turning right towards Marathahalli spill into the left lane, because the left lane is there and nobody is stopping them.

The Morning

Between 9:30 and 10:30 am, the T junction is the primary choke point. Vehicles headed right towards Marathahalli and Whitefield occupy both lanes — including the left lane meant for turning onto Old Airport Road toward the city. The jam backs up past the HAL gate, before you even reach Sobha Palladian. On Old Airport Road, coming the other way, the congestion stretches back past the police station. What it looks like past the junction in Marathahalli, I can only imagine.

The Evening

Post 5pm, Old Airport Road toward Yemalur signal is a lottery. On a bad day the congestion starts from as far back as the helicopter division. On a good day, two signal changes to make the left turn into Yemalur. The lane indiscipline mirrors the morning — vehicles going straight through toward Marathahalli occupy the right lane meant for turning into Yemalur, and when the right turn signal finally comes on, the traffic already at the junction makes it impossible to actually move.

The more dangerous problem is the wrong-way driving. Two-wheelers and autos, looking to avoid the queue on Yemalur Main Road, come up the wrong side of the road directly into oncoming traffic. This is not mysterious behaviour — it is entirely rational. It saves time, there is no consequence, and Bangalore traffic has long established that if you can get away with it, you may as well. Every law-abiding car on that stretch is playing dodge with vehicles coming at them head-on.

What Would Actually Fix This

I am not an urban planner. But I have sat at this signal long enough to have opinions, and the fixes are not complicated.

Widening Yemalur Main Road by acquiring HAL land — not realistic. An underpass or flyover — not realistic given the sensitivity of the establishments around it. What is realistic is this:

A physical divider on Yemalur Main Road, starting from opposite Sobha Palladian's entrance and running to the signal, with lane markings indicated clearly from around HAL's parking lot and entrance gate. A similar divider on Old Airport Road from 50 to 100 meters before the junction, clearly marked from around the police station. These two things force the lane discipline that drivers are not choosing voluntarily. You cannot block the left lane if a divider prevents you from being in it.

For the wrong-way driving, there is one practical answer: a traffic officer posted outside Sobha Palladian, booking violators on the spot. Consistently enough that coming the wrong way starts costing more than it saves.

What's Already Working

Old Airport Road has been re-tarred, which is a genuine improvement. Sidewalk restoration work is underway as of this week. And the unnecessary speed breaker outside the post office before Yemalur signal — the one that slowed traffic for no reason anyone could identify — has been removed. Someone is paying attention to this stretch.

The signal itself is next. The junction, the lanes, the enforcement. The solutions are sitting there. Someone just has to build the divider.