Widening Bangalore-Bellary Road or shifting bottle necks?

Any one who has come towards North Bangalore must have surely experienced the Hebbal flyover. Though normal by International standards, but by Indian and more specifically Bangalore standards it is a nice piece of work and the most scenic part of the journey is the view of the Hebbal Lake on the left. As some one who has seen and stayed North part of Bangalore much before the flyover came into existence. I must confess the construction was never delayed and it came up just about the right time, unlike other structures in Bangalore which come up much after the need is felt. But are the things really rose? Don’t we face problems as other road construction projects in Bangalore? Honest answer- Yes and No.Yes once you are on the flyover. A big no before you hit the flyover. There is big bus stop just before the Flyover and the road s not very broad. So you have multiple traffic issues:

1. Bus which move Northwards towards Yelahanka generally travel on the right lane, move to the left to pick up passengers at the bus stop.



2. The same buses then cut to the right once they are ready to move.



3. Passengers boarding the bus are anxious to enter the bus first to grab that precious seat on the bus.



4. Pedestrians want to cross the road and act as part time traffic constables, showing the stop sign to approaching vehicles. Some smart pedestrians form small groups and show that they have the numbers on their side ad all approaching vehicles have to stop.



5. The small road on the left of the flyover is the route to Boopsandra and is a one way towards North. But for some drivers it is the shorter route and hence the preferred route even tough it happens to be a wrong way. They cause more congestion as they have to take a U turn to proceed on the flyover. Considering the width of the flyover they sometimes have to take a reverse after they try a U turn. This causes a real bad jam. The wrong side vehicles cannot go further and need to reverse, the vehicles moving towards North just want to proceed further (rightly so) and want to teach the erring driver a lesson and come up as further as they can. But by the time their anger subsides, they cannot go back because vehicles would have already pilled up. The vehicle behind are going crazy and just honk, this happens dung evening office hours when every one is tired and wants to go home. What a jam!



6. Some vehicles have to take the road on the left of flyover to Boopsandra, but they know that the left lane is slow because the Bus stop, so in the small area between the Bus stop and the flyover, they swivel to the left over taking the buses, avoiding pedestrians and just about squeezing through without touching the flyover. Best of luck to them if there is any vehicle coming on the wrong side ( Point #5)I have tried to show these in a diagram. Point #6 is too difficult to show. So it is left to your imagination.

Relief is on its way and the State government has a plan to expand the Bangalore Bellary road. If you were one of those pessimists who say that it will remain a plan then you will be surprised that work is already in progress and expansion of the road and tree felling is on brisk progress. I am not one of those guys who say NO to tree felling for road expansion, so what is the point I am trying to make?My argument is that expansion will only make the drive upto the bus stop comfortable, the issues addressed above will remain the unresolved. One of the flaws which cannot be resolved without a major reconstruction is the fact that the flyover is two lanes and even if you make the approach road three lane, there will be a bottle neck to enter the flyover.Let me put forth my suggestion for this problem:

1. The flyover cannot be expanded, so to avoid the upcoming bottlenecks, the buses should continue to move in the leftmost lane and not move over the flyover. The barricade should be removed and buses should cross the Red light under the flyover and rejoin the road proceeding towards Yelahanka after flyover.


2. Over head pedestrian walk way to be constructed, a large barricade to be constructed on the median so that pedestrians do no cross by walking on the road.


3. Hopefully, with so much bus traffic, people will stop coming by the wrong way.
   The below diagram explains the proposed solution.
   
   
   

Let me list out the drawbacks of the proposed solution:

1. Bus travel will increase slightly
2. The waiting period at the Red light will increase for traffic on other side direction (Ring road traffic).
3. Utilization of the bridge will reduce.As per me view the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, this problem would not have arisen had the Hebbal flyover been three lanes.

However as I mentioned the flyover is a good piece of work by our standards and we should think of how we can address the immediate issues, instead of blaming the past.

About the AuthorSrikant Suddekunte can be contacted as articlesfromsrikant@gmail.com. He is working in the IT industry and writes articles on new developments in IT industry and on latest issues and trends.