Expressway for airport drive

Expressway for airport drive
Deccan Herald

Eighteen months ahead of the airport’s scheduled opening, BMRDA has kicked off work on an expressway that is tipped to offer an easier commute to the airport’s projected 11 million passengers (per year).

The Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority (BMRDA) is taking an expressway route to drive out apprehensions regarding connectivity between the City and the upcoming Bangalore International Airport in Devanahalli, a good 35 km away.

Eighteen months ahead of the airport’s scheduled opening, BMRDA has kicked off work on an expressway that is tipped to offer an easier commute to the airport’s projected 11 million passengers (per year). The proposal for the 26-km expressway — starting at the Hennur-Challakere stretch on the Outer Ring Road — was formalised at a BMRDA board meeting on Wednesday.

“The expressway will start near Babusaheb Palya on ORR, and pass through stretches covering areas like Bagalur before reaching the International Airport. It will then pass further through northern alignments and connect to the National Highway (N-207),” BMRDA Chairman Sudhir Krishna told Deccan Herald on Thursday.


The survey and DPR on the project will be taken up by the Karnataka Road Development Corporation Limited (KRDCL). “We’ve fixed four months as time-frame for submission of the preliminary and final reports on the project. We hope that the road will be on by early 2008,” Mr Krishna said. He said it was early to make predictions about the budget involved in the project and added that the exact volumes of land acquisition and human displacement could be arrived at, only after the reports were submitted.

According to BIAL estimates, the airport when fully operational, will have the capacity to handle 11 million passengers every year. The figure is a pointer to how the traffic pattern in the surrounding areas will be, and calls for sustainable road infrastructure to complement the airport’s potential growth.

“When you count in the number of passengers and people who accompany them to and from the airport, we are looking at a figure well in the excess of one crore (commuters on the road) per year, when the airport becomes fully functional,” Krishna said.

He, however, said BMRDA had a margin to extend the January 2008 deadline for the expressway, considering that the airport’s development has been planned in phases. The Bangalore International Airport is scheduled to open by April 2008.