Expressway project on the fast track

Expressway project on the fast track
Plans Already Afoot To Make Bangalore-Mysore State Highway A 6-Lane Road
The TImes of India

Bangalore: The expansion bug is catching fast: Quietly following the Bangalore International Airport’s example, the Bangalore-Mysore four-lane state highway is preparing to accommodate the traffic density of 2012 AD. The near-complete four-lane road connecting Karnataka’s capital with its top tier-II city, is expected to meet its completion deadline of June 2006. It has been designed to take a load of 40,000 passenger carrying units (PCUs) per day, but the present traffic density is already 30,000 PCUs every day!

Unlike the airport, the administration is not waiting for any central directives for expansion plans. “We are aware that the traffic density will catch up with the road capacity very soon. We have already surveyed land from Mysore to Srirangapatna and marked boundary lines to six-lane the road. The rest of the land will be surveyed and we hope to start work within a year,’’ Karnataka Road Development Corporation Limited (KRDCL) managing director M R Kamble told ‘The Times of India’.

The four-lane road itself has been designed with care, providing a thickness of 1 metre (1,000 mm) of asphalting all through. Curves along the road have been flattened out and the road designed in such a way that vehicles can zip even at 100 km per hour.

Construction work was hampered all through the last six months due to unseasonal rains. Delays were also caused as three of the five bridges en route are heritage structures built by the Mysore maharaja and had to be preserved with care.

Work on 111 km of the four-lane road has been completed, leaving out about 30 km of road that fall within the city limits of Ramanagaram, Channapatna and Mandya. A special plan has been worked out for these stretches — including chief minister H D Kumaraswamy’s assembly segment Ramanagaram — where KRDCL will overlay a “geofabric’’ on the existing four-lane roads in the cities that were built with Asian Development Bank loan.

“The geofabric will ensure that cracks do not surface at all on these roads, despite rains. We will be spending Rs 1 crore per km of these roads, approximately a total Rs 30 crore,’’ Kamble outlined.

Besides six-laning and geofabric roads, plans are also on to build bypasses on the Bangalore-Mysore road at six places — Kengeri, Bidadi, Ramanagaram, Channapatna, Mandya and Srirangapatna. Detailed project reports are being drawn up for these bypasses that will ensure that traffic that does not go into these cities and can proceed unhindered to the destination.

WORK STATUS & PLANS

• Work on 111 km of the four-lane road has been completed, leaving out about 30 km of road that fall within the city limits of Ramanagaram, Channapatna and Mandya.

• Plans are also on to build bypasses on the Bangalore-Mysore road at six places — Kengeri, Bidadi, Ramanagaram, Channapatna, Mandya and Srirangapatna.

• Detailed project reports are being drawn up for these bypasses that will ensure that traffic that does not go into these cities and can proceed unhindered to the destination.

• A special plan has been worked out where KRDCL will overlay a “geofabric’’ on the existing four-lane roads in the cities that were built with Asian Development Bank loan.

• The authorities have surveyed land from Mysore to Srirangapatna and marked boundary lines to six-lane the road. The rest of the land will be surveyed and work will start within a year