A founder's complaint about her daily commute has reopened an uncomfortable debate about Bengaluru and the physical price residents pay for navigating its broken roads.

Elisha Roy, founder of MyMiniMoo, says travelling almost every day in an autorickshaw has begun taking a toll on her back. In a LinkedIn post that has attracted attention online, she described stretches of the city as effectively “one giant pothole” and argued that bad roads are no longer merely an inconvenience.

“My back is starting to hate Bengaluru,” Roy wrote, according to Hindustan Times. She said she would prefer taking a cab, but congestion makes cabs slower, leaving autorickshaws as the more practical option despite their limited suspension on damaged roads. Her frustration taps into a much larger question: when Bengaluru roads become so rough that residents associate their everyday commute with back pain, neck pain and constant jolting, does poor infrastructure also become a quality-of-life and health issue?

Bengaluru Roads and the Physical Cost of the Daily Commute

Roy said every crater, bump and uneven patch is felt directly while travelling in an autorickshaw. She also claimed to know two people whose slipped discs had either been triggered or aggravated by daily commuting. That is her personal account rather than a medical finding connecting the city's roads with those conditions, but it illustrates why commuters increasingly view the Bengaluru roads poor condition debate as more than a question of damaged vehicles.

Roy's larger point was about cumulative strain. Residents frequently discuss Bengaluru traffic in terms of hours lost every week. But she asked what happens when those hours are also spent repeatedly bouncing over potholes and damaged surfaces. “The back pain. The neck pain. The constant jolting. The injuries,” she wrote while questioning the physical cost of moving through the city. Recent reporting suggests the road problem extends well beyond one founder's commute.

The New Indian Express documented badly damaged stretches near Babusapalya, Mysuru Road, Cantonment Railway Station and Richmond Road in August, including the case of a scooter rider who said he suffered a fractured hand after his vehicle skidded while navigating a pothole.

Bengaluru Traffic Is Now a Quality-of-Life Problem

Traffic itself remains inseparable from the road debate. Karnataka recently created an urban mobility committee bringing together government agencies and private operators such as Uber, Ola, Rapido, Namma Yatri and MoveInSync. The government acknowledged that congestion, parking shortages, poor first- and last-mile connectivity and growing pressure on road space are affecting productivity, economic efficiency and residents' quality of life. Parking is another problem. Karnataka minister Krishna Byre Gowda recently said parked vehicles occupy nearly 60% of available road space in parts of the city, worsening Bengaluru traffic and reducing the amount of roadway available for moving vehicles.

For commuters travelling towards major employment hubs, searches such as “bengaluru traffic jam electronic city” reflect an everyday reality: getting to work can involve both prolonged congestion and poor road surfaces. The familiar bengaluru traffic jam electronic city problem is therefore part of a much wider infrastructure challenge rather than an isolated traffic bottleneck.

Why Policymakers Are Talking About a “Second Bengaluru”

The pressure has become large enough for policymakers to openly discuss spreading Karnataka's growth beyond the capital. On September 2, NITI Aayog vice-chairman Ashok Kumar Lahiri said Karnataka should “seriously consider” creating a second major Bengaluru-like growth centre to reduce pressure on the existing city. Chief Minister DK Shivakumar said the state would examine the suggestion and prepare a comprehensive plan.

The economic numbers help explain the concern. Karnataka's GSDP stood at around ₹32.81 lakh crore in 2025-26, with growth of 8.1%, according to figures presented during the meeting. Bengaluru alone has around 26 lakh IT professionals, Shivakumar said. When such a large share of investment, jobs and migration concentrates in one metropolitan area, roads, housing and public transport come under enormous pressure. That makes Roy's complaint part of a deeper question about whether infrastructure has kept pace with the city's economic success.

Are Authorities Doing Anything About the Potholes?

There are plans to improve the situation. The city government has announced around ₹8,000 crore for road-related infrastructure and has set a target of repairing potholes by the end of September 2026. The challenge is execution. Road experts have told The New Indian Express that Bengaluru already has standard procedures for pothole repair, including cutting damaged sections properly, cleaning them, applying tack coat, filling them with bitumen and rolling the repaired surface.

Their criticism is that these procedures are not consistently followed. That may help explain why residents frequently complain that repaired roads deteriorate again after relatively short periods. The Bengaluru roads poor condition debate is therefore not solely about the amount of money being spent. It is also about construction quality, coordination between civic agencies and accountability after repairs are completed.

From Potholes to Public Health

It would be an overstatement to conclude from one LinkedIn post that the city's roads are medically “destroying” residents' health. But dismissing the complaint as social-media exaggeration would miss the larger point. Poor roads can expose commuters to repeated jolts, increase accident risks and make already lengthy journeys more physically uncomfortable. Recent reports have also documented riders suffering injuries while trying to navigate potholes.

Roy's post has therefore changed the framing of a familiar complaint. People have long argued that Bengaluru traffic wastes time. Now the question is whether the combination of congestion, damaged roads and hours spent commuting is also imposing a physical cost. Authorities have promised repairs, major infrastructure spending and longer-term solutions to reduce pressure on the city. But those plans will ultimately be judged in a much simpler way.

For commuters sitting in the back of an autorickshaw tomorrow morning, what matters is whether the next stretch of road still feels like one giant pothole.