Elevated dreams on ground zero

Elevated dreams on ground zero
The Times of India

Bangalore: At peak time, on a good day, the 9-km stretch from the Silk Board junction to Electronics City along Hosur Road will take you about 1 hour to cover. On a bad day, that could go up to an hour and a half. For the thousands who work in Electronics City, the road is a daily nightmare.

From July 2008, all that could change. You may be able to do the distance in 10 to 15 minutes. The consortium of Soma Enterprise, Nagarjuna Constructions and Maytas Infra has begun work on the National Highways Authority of India’s elevated toll expressway project on this stretch, and it is expected that the Rs 765-crore enterprise will be fully complete in two years.

TOI went down the Hosur Road and found that pile and soil testing is under way at several places. In some stretches, where there are no service roads, such roads are being built so that some traffic can be diverted onto them during the period of construction of the elevated road.

Soma Enterprise director Ankineedu Maganti said one of the first tasks being taken up is to clean the broad drains alongside Hosur Road and then cover them up, widen the main carriageway to 6-lane standards, and widen the service road into good 2-lane ones. “All this will help to minimise traffic disruption during the construction period. You may even be able to drive over the drain if necessary,” Maganti said.

Efforts are on to divert heavy vehicles at the Attibele and Chandapura junctions, so that they do not clog the main Hosur Road.

The expressway: The 4-lane elevated toll expressway will start about 200 metres from the existing Silk Board junction flyover. It will involve building some 250 pillars along the median of Hosur Road. The expressway ends at Electronics City junction with link roads into Electronics City phase I and phase II. There will be toll plazas at the interchanges.

Soma consortium will also be building four pedestrian underpasses and two vehicle underpasses at the Attibele and Chandapur junctions. This is expected to eliminate the problem of pedestrians crossing Hosur Road and disrupting traffic.

The NHAI is also set to award a contract to widen Hosur Road from Electronics City to Hosur. This 15-km stretch will be made into a 6-lane road with 2-lane service roads on each side. The plan is to make this into a toll road. Once it’s done, somebody coming from Hosur can pay a toll there and zip down all the way to Madivala.

Action shifts to Tumkur Road

The NHAI has called for bids to build an elevatedcum-surface expressway on Tumkur Road, from near the Ring Road junction to Nelamangala. The bids are to be submitted by next month. The length of the proposed toll expressway is 20 km. The 4.5 km-long elevated stretch starts near the Ring Road junction.

NHAI generally takes one to three months to finalise the bid; actual construction of the project could begin within six months of that. So, in less than a year, the Tumkur Road expressway too may get going. And once that’s done, it could provide enormous relief to those working/living in Peenya and Jalahalli.

IN NUMBERS
The expressway’s expected date of completion is July 2008.

Some vital stats:
Length: 9 km No. of lanes on elevated stretch: 4 No. of lanes on surface stretch: 6, plus 2-lane service roads on either side
Bus bays at ground level: 8 on either side
Maintenance: Soma consortium to maintain both expressway and surface road for 20 years

FEEL THE PINCH
Proposed toll on expressway
Car: Rs 25
Two-wheeler: Rs 10
Truck: Rs 70
Day passes at 1.5 times the one-way rate
Monthly passes at 30 times the one-way rate (that comes to Rs 750 for a car for a month)