Airport Road overpass to be ready by August

Airport Road overpass to be ready by August

The Hindu

BDA says part of the overpass will be commissioned in June

# Project delayed because of litigation, disruption in supply of construction material
# Overpass to have four loops connecting the roads to Indiranagar and Koramangala
# Airport Road handles 11,000 passenger car units per hour during peak hours in the morning and evening

BANGALORE: The Airport Road overpass is expected to be commissioned by the end of June and fully by August, according to Bangalore Development Authority. But two other major overpass projects will have to be completed before some of the city's traffic woes find a solution. Construction on these have been on since early 2003 with unanticipated delays intervening. The overpass at the Airport Road-Ring Road junction has been under construction since February 2003 and the deadline has been revised several times. The latest deadline is August 15. The delay, according to the BDA, was because of strikes by truckers and the dispute with the contractor, Uttar Pradesh State Bridges Corporation.

The interchange on Airport Road has a main ramp along with four loops, which interconnect Indiranagar, Koramangala Ring Road and Airport Road. The airport road junction handles 11,162 PCUs (passenger car units) during morning peak hours and 10,821 PCUs during evening peak hours.

According to a traffic survey, the traffic increase would be as high as 26,913 PCUs by 2007. Another delayed project, Bannerghatta Road overpass, is expected to be completed by May, the latest deadline. The BDA opened the main ramp in February 2005 and has to complete work on the underpass connecting Bannerghatta Road with Dairy Circle and another from Ring Road to Bannerghatta Road, BDA engineers said. The overpass at Ananda Rao Circle is expected to be completed by January end. Work here was prolonged as the traffic could not be stopped during construction. The roads here connect the city railway station and bus station to roads towards the central business district and the Vidhana Soudha and High Court. Almost completed now is a five-lane undivided one-way overpass up to Ananda Rao Circle; a two-lane one-way down ramp towards Basaveshwara Circle and a four-lane one-way overpass along Seshadri Road crossing Ananda Rao Circle and Subbanna Circle.

All are roads with considerable traffic being right in the commercial nerve centre of Bangalore.

With the completion and commissioning of these three overpasses, traffic both within the central part of the city and traffic to and from newer suburbs and the information technology hubs in Koramangala will benefit and congestion and traffic snarls will be reduced to a large extent.