Open Streets Bengaluru-Traffic free MG Road

Similar to what I had seen in Pune last year- (Happy Streets Pune!), many cities in India are implementing the idea of using select roads for recreational purposes once a while. In Chennai it was being tried on Besent Nagar beach road, in Bengaluru MG Road was blocked for traffic from 9 AM to 9PM on Sunday and people had great fun on the street.

While Pune event focused on lots of recreational activities like dance, skating, rollers, games and so on, MG Road event seemed to focus more on shopping. Lots of stalls were setup all along the road side, including eateries and people were busy buying at the shops, crowding streets. Space for other outdoor activities were little less. In my opinion it will be better if shopping space is limited to a small area (shopping and eating can be done any day anywhere)

I went in at about 3PM and spent about an hour walking around. There were different activities throughout the day- singing, dancing, magic shows, painting exhibition, Yakshagana, kids activities and so on. Depending on what time you were there, you might catch different activities.

Nearby Cubbon park has also banned traffic on sundays so that kids and people can have more fun. So you might get to witness some singing/street plays etc inside Cubbon park

Among many stalls, I spotted a stall that was accepting inquiries for skydiving- they claim to start operations in November and facilitate tandem jump for about 30K. No Solo jump facilitated yet. A foot stall selling congress chat also caught my attention.