No flying over, only snarls & chaos

No flying over, only snarls & chaos
Deccan herald

Narrow roads, bumper-to-bumper traffic, pending road works... the public is growing impatient as the travails increase by the day.

Commuters trying to get across the flyover at Hebbal at peak hour can expect a stressful hour or so. And there is hardly any sign of white-and-khaki when it is most needed.

Aditya Sen, who works in a consultancy firm in the City, and has to pass by this flyover every morning during peak hours, says: “Sometimes when I go to work after the peak hour when the traffic is freer, I see groups of policemen stopping vehicles and slapping fine on people. Where are all of them now?”

Sunitha Gopalan, who works in an NGO, told Deccan Herald that as a result of all the traffic jam, “my blood pressure has been going up and up. All this development is bad for us, our city, our country, and our world,” she fumed, gesticulating irritably as she spoke.

Many people pointed out that the problem was mostly due to the fact that the road is no longer wide enough after the flyover on Bellary Road.

“Once they finish the work, it is sure to become better for us. Then there may not be so many problems,” said Ratish Mishra, a pensioner, before wryly hoping that it would happen in the lifetime of his grandchildren. Work on making six lanes of NH 7 is proceeding — but too slow, it seems, for the commuters. Traffic coming in to the city from the Yelahanka side has to cramp into two lanes shortly before the flyover, because the stretches in between are not tarred yet.

This impedes movement of oncoming traffic, which builds up along the main ramp of the flyover.

To compound matters, the effects of this initial build-up are made painfully apparent on other ramps, which means that the ramp leading down towards Tumkur Road or Hosur Road also get blocked up often.

Entrepreneur Sudarshan Kumar’s reply to this correspondent’s question about his travails was brief but clear: “I used to love this city, man,” he said.