(Yawn!) Soon you can zip, zap, zoom through the city

PROPOSED SIX-LANE THOROUGHFARES
Soon you can zip, zap, zoom through the city
Six-Lane Core Ring Road To Drastically Cut Travel Time For Commuters
The Times of India

Bangalore: After an infrastructure overkill in and around inner and outer ring roads, civic authorities are training their sights on where it hurts most — the Core Ring Road.

Envisaged by the Bangalore City Corporation (BCC) and Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), the 25-km stretch of the proposed Core Ring Road will slice through the heart of the city. When this takes off, commuters will be able to zip, zap, zoom on the six-lane road, reaching their destinations in minutes.

Upgrading would happen on these identified roads — Race Course Road, Seshadri Road, Lal Bagh Road, Trinity Church Road, Old Mysore Road, Puttanna Chetty Road, among others. This particular stretch has been identified because it was felt the core of the city had to be fortified to facilitate smooth movement of traffic.

The concept of Core Ring Road has apparently been incorporated into the new Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) pending before the government for approval. The decision to upgrade the routes into six-lane roads was taken by the BCC and BDA in tandem with a French company.

Says BDA commissioner M.N. Vidyashankar, “In the CDP, there is a component that deals with traffic management. This component has to be shared with all civic bodies and widening these roads is the only way to decongest traffic.’’ Accordingly, the alignment of Core Ring Road had to define the limits of ‘city core’ and this was done by a visual survey of activity hubs, traffic count database and movement patterns of vehicular population.

Consequently, the layout maps for the roads identified have been drawn up and at some places, the BCC workers have started beavering away. At Seshadri Road, stray trees that obstructed the proposed six-lane route have been done away with. Mysore Road, on the other hand, apparently faces no problem as there is vacant land on either side, at the far end is a four-lane road with physical barriers like a road-underbridge.

On the required infrastructure for upgradation, BCC technical advisor R. Jaiprasad explains, “The idea is to facilitate people travelling within the city to use easier routes. They needn’t have to go to an outer ring road to reach a destination within the city. To make it six-lane and accommodate large volumes of thoroughfare vehicular traffic, we obviously require space. But we are being very careful about it, for instance at the Lal Bagh Fort Road, we won’t be meddling with the botanical area. Puttanna Chetty Road is a very narrow twolane road presently, this would be made four-lane.’’

Like all other ring roads within the conurbation limits of the city, the Core Ring Road would have a road width of 30 metres. A mutual decision would have to be reached between BCC, BDA and their respective engineers regarding the width and the type of ring road.