GROUNDED before take-off

GROUNDED before take-off
On March 30, 2008, flights will be taking off and landing at the new Bangalore international airport at Devanahalli. But air passengers are dreading the thought of negotiating gridlocked roads to get there. TOI correspondents travelled from three corners of the city on November 5 to Devanahalli Airport to find out how bad it is

FROM ELECTRONIC CITY
Anshul Dhamija

5.32 pm: We start from near the Infosys campus. There’s a bus-stop right at the Electronic City exit point and there are buses blocking the way. The uneven levelling along much of Hosur Road makes the traffic flow more chaotic. At one point, there is a truck parked right on the road. We also spotted one deep pothole that can be hazardous.
5.50 pm: Bommanahalli junction. There’s a huge jam and the dust in the air is choking us. It takes 13 minutes for us to get through the junction. But this apart, the traffic flow on Hosur Road is not bad, despite the ongoing construction of the elevated expressway.
6.07 pm (10 km): Silk Board junction. We get through the junction and on to the ring road quickly and the ride is good for a while.
6.17 pm (15 km): Sarjapur Circle. No major traffic problems at this junction, but there’s some hold-up at the junction immediately after that.
6.29 pm (21 km): Marathahalli underpass. It’s a breeze till we near KR Puram.
6.38 pm (27 km): There’s a big jam near the flyover that connects the ring road to the ITPB road. The jam continues up to the suspension bridge on Old Madras Road. Where the traffic coming down the suspension bridge meets that coming below it, there is further chaos. It takes about 15 minutes to cover a 2-km distance. There is another jam on the flyover connecting Old Madras Road with the ring road on the Ramamurthy Nagar side. Lots of trucks and oil tankers block the road. We finally get across that flyover at 7.01 pm. 7.09 pm: The cab driver is complaining of an ache in his legs due the constant pressing of the clutch and brake. He takes a 3-minute break.
7.16 pm: Lingarajapuram junction. Not too bad. But trouble starts soon after. 7.23 pm: Hennur Cross. Pretty bad.
7.30 pm (37 km): BEL office junction. Major jam.
7.40 pm (40 km): Hebbal flyover. We get through this fast. And thereafter it’s a breeze, all along BEL Road to Devanahalli.
7.52 pm: Yelahanka junction. No lights on certain stretches of the road. No cateyes along the median either, which is a risk to traffic.
8.09 pm (63 km): Turn towards the airport from the BEL Road.
8.20 pm (68 km): Reach the new airport terminal building. A good stretch of the last 5 kms is not asphalted, so the going is slow. This is likely to be set right before the airport opens. We’ve crossed approximately 27 to reach our destination.

FROM JP NAGAR
Bansy Kalappa

5.45 pm: We start from the intersection of Ring Road and Kanakapura Road at JP Nagar. We drive towards Jayanagar through Sarakki Gate where there is an illegal garbage disposable area and the stench of garbage hangs thick in the air.
At a traffic signal beside the Banashankari Temple, we wait for about 85 seconds. There are hordes of pushcart vendors who slow down traffic. There is a smaller street and another traffic intersection where there is a long wait.
As we go further on, there is a traffic intersection at Sangam Circle at which there is a wait for about 2 minutes. On the Jayanagar road leading to South End Circle beside the N Lakshman Rao Park, traffic slows down as there are many traffic intersections. We reach South End Circle and wait there for 116 seconds and start from there at 6.03 pm.
6.07 pm: We reach Lalbagh West Gate and proceed to Minerva Circle where we reach by about 6.10 pm. All along, the traffic is not so heavy but on J C Road, the pile-up begins. We start from Town Hall junction after a 2-minute wait at about 6.20 pm. We go past Hudson Circle at 6.23 pm and proceed towards Cubbon Park and thereafter High Court Circle and Raj Bhavan. 6.29 pm: We cross Raj Bhavan. The traffic is very thick and we reach Mehkri Circle at 7.01 pm and take a ten-minute stop to take the pictures of the traffic jam on Sankey Road. At the Mehkri Circle underpass, they are changing the steel girders on one half of the road. Work has been going on for four days and will continue for a few more days.
Once we clear the Hebbal flyover, the traffic clears and the cab can travel at speeds going up to 80 kmph.
8 pm: We reach the international airport at about 8 pm.
What a waste!
I dread the thought of going to the new international airport once it is ready. From the present airport, it takes about 40 minutes to reach my office during lean traffic but from the new airport, it will take much more than that. Flying to a short-distance destination like Chennai, Kochi, Hyderabad, Goa or Mangalore takes about 30 minutes from Bangalore. It is terrible to travel for 2 hours just to get to the airport.
— Justice Santosh Hegde Lok Ayukta

FROM RAJARAJESHWARI NAGAR
N D Shiva Kumar

5.30 pm: Departure from Rajarajeshwari Nagar Arch. The collection of sand on the sides of Mysore Road usually hinders movement of sand-laden trucks. Thankfully, there were none at this point of time. Without any hitch, we touched the Magadi Chord Road to pass through Vijaynagar. The gaps in the medians, for traffic movement from one side to the other, was a cause of concern because of impatient motorists, lack of policemen and traffic signals. By the time we reached Rajkumar Road, we spotted 17 such gaps. On Agrahara Dasarahalli Magadi Main road, the dust from the underpass construction forced us to roll up the windows. 5.54 pm: Via Rajkumar Road, we pass through Rajajinagar, West of Chord road to reach Yeshwantpur. Narrow roads, several turns and congestion are the glitches. Lack of order on the road and impatient pedestrians only complicated matters.
6.10 pm: Road work at the junction (in front of the police station) is a huge bottleneck. Some protest at the junction held up traffic for a while. The cop manning the junction said protests here are a common feature.
6.24 pm: Mehkri Circle to Hebbal flyover was a piece of cake, for a change. No hitches at all.
6.39 pm: Reached Hebbal flyover and thereafter the journey was smooth. With a sense of relief, our driver zipped through this stretch and reached the board on the main road which reads ‘International Airport - 5 kms’. As the road is not completely asphalted, it was a slow and dusty ride.
7.25 pm: We park in front of the airport’s main terminal. The 48-km journey took us 1 hour 55 minutes. This is a good time as we did not face any traffic blocks due to processions or accidents or vehicle breakdowns. Factor in these and travel time could easily be well over 2 hours.