Bengaluru Traffic Nightmare: School Buses Cover 5 km In 2 Hours

Students returning home from schools in and around the Varthur and Gunjur area of Bengaluru were stuck in a massive traffic jam on Thursday evening, with parents claiming that several students spent more than two hours travelling barely five to six kilometres.

The traffic chaos was reported along SH-35 near Gunjur, on the stretch leading towards Varthur. Several school buses were among the vehicles caught in the gridlock.

One parent, Ritish Reddy, CEO and Co-founder of Zluri, went looking for his daughter after tracking the GPS location of her school bus. He filmed the massive traffic pile-up, showing dozens of school buses stuck on the road.

Posting about the situation on social media, Reddy said, "2+ hours. Every single day. That's how long kids from Whitefield spend on Varthur Road for a 5km commute. My own daughter is stuck right now as I post this. Whitefield deserves better than this."

According to details shared by parents in residents' groups, school buses from several institutions took over two hours to cover the short distance on Thursday.

School bus commute times reported on September 17:

• TISB to PLH: 6 km - 2 hours 15 minutes
• Inventure to PLH: 6 km - 2 hours 30 minutes
• Greenwood High: 5 km - 2 hours 30 minutes
• United World Academy: 5 km - 2 hours

Parents and residents have frequently raised concerns about the condition of the Varthur Main Road, citing potholes, ongoing and delayed road works and bottlenecks as factors contributing to traffic congestion.

A resident described the stretch as a major route used by thousands of people and schoolchildren every day, connecting several residential communities with Whitefield.

The resident alleged that the road has remained in poor condition for years, with potholes, loose gravel, dust, broken streetlights and inadequate maintenance. The situation, the resident said, becomes worse during rains, when water-filled potholes and muddy stretches make the road difficult and potentially dangerous to navigate.

The resident questioned why a major road used by thousands of commuters continues to face such problems and called for immediate intervention to address the road conditions, traffic and safety concerns.

Meanwhile, Nooraine Fazal, founder of Inventure Academy, said children and teachers spent as much as seven hours on the road travelling to school and back home on Thursday.

"We desperately need help" Fazal said, while stressing that the problem was not a one-off incident.

She called for both immediate measures and long-term investments to address Bengaluru's growing mobility challenges.

Among the measures she suggested were keeping heavy vehicles off key roads during school peak hours, enforcing penalties for wrong-side driving and other traffic violations, incentivising school buses and shared transport over individual vehicles, and collecting real-time mobility data to use simulation and "what-if" analysis to determine optimal school and office timings.

Fazal also called for urgent repairs to potholes, blocked drains and other traffic bottlenecks.

She said the Varthur-Gunjur area is home to several prominent schools and that thousands of children, along with teachers, parents, staff and other residents, are losing hours every day due to traffic congestion.

Fazal emphasised the need for stakeholders to work collaboratively on both immediate interventions and long-term planning, including mass mobility, public transport and expansion of Bengaluru's road network.

The traffic crisis on the Varthur-Gunjur stretch has once again brought the city's infrastructure and mobility challenges into focus, particularly in rapidly developing areas where residential communities, schools and commercial activity have expanded significantly.