New flyover only shifts traffic bottleneck

New flyover only shifts traffic bottleneck
Deccan Herald

For years the project was languishing. But when Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy inaugurated the Ananda Rao Circle flyover on February 10, road users heaved a sigh of relief....

For years the project was languishing. But when Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy inaugurated the Ananda Rao Circle flyover on February 10, road users heaved a sigh of relief. Their joy apparently seems to be short-lived. For, the flyover has only resulted in shifting the traffic bottleneck from Ananda Rao Circle to Maharani College junction.

The Rs 27.6-crore flyover that was constructed by Bangalore Development Authority to diffuse the traffic at the City’s busiest intersections, is yet to fulfil its objective, thanks to the pending underpass on Seshadri Road.

Traffic congestion continued as before on Tuesday, but shifted positions from Anand Rao circle junction to Maharani College junction.

At 4 pm, the zipping speed of vehicles coming from the uni-direction flyover was reduced to slow motion as they approached Maharani’s College.

According to Jayamma, a staffer at Maharani’s College, the pile-up continued till the downward ramp of the flyover outside the Fire Police Station Headquarters on Tuesday morning. She added that the traffic congestion peaked from 9 am to 11 am and 3 pm to 5 pm. People coming from north Bangalore prefer to go on the flyover rather than take deviations. This has increased the traffic load on the road, explained K Sridhar, a government official who works on Seshadri Road.

Troubled

Pedestrians are troubled too, as Maharani’s College student Rajeshwari pointed out.

“Vehicles are travelling at higher speeds due to the flyover, but it has become difficult for us to cross the road. We have to wait for at least 15 minutes before we get an opportunity to walk to the other side,” Rajeshwari rued.

Meanwhile, DCP (Traffic-East) M A Saleem said the traffic department will observe the impact of the flyover for a few weeks, before introducing changes in the traffic signal timings at the Maharani’s junction.

Underpass plan

According to BDA Commissioner M N Vidy-ashankar, the BDA is planning to introduce an underpass at Maharani’s College junction, in consultation with the Traffic Police, to ensure smooth movement of vehicles.

“We will begin construction of the underpass after we complete the loop. Till then, we want the traffic police to introduce synchronised traffic lights to avoid bottlenecks,” the BDA commissioner expl-ained.