12,000 vehicles choke Silk Board Junction every hour

12,000 vehicles choke Silk Board Junction every hour
— Madhukeshwar Desai and Aniketh B C

Bangalore: Motorists headed to and from industrial areas like Bommanahalli and Electronic City use Hosur Road and have to necessarily pass the arterial Silk Board junction in South Bangalore. As a result, this junction is bursting with traffic and slowing down the commute for other users.
Traffic volume at Silk Board junction, that connects Hosur Road, Madiwala, BTM Layout and HSR Layout, is now 12,000 vehicles per hour, up from 6,000 in 1998.
Frequent traffic pile-ups here cause jams on a regular basis. The main reason for this is that passing this junction is a must, not only for commuters using Hosur Road to get to Electronic City, but also for those entering Hosur Road via Ring Road.
“It takes me an hour and a half to travel from Jayanagar 4th Block to Electronic City during peak hours and the major block is at Silk Board junction. Leaving 10 minutes early helps me avoid the jams but if I take my bus 10 minutes later than usual, I get delayed by an additional 20 minutes. Timing is very crucial,” says Praful P, who travels to Electronic City daily.
Many professionals like Praful hop on to office buses to cut fuel costs and avoid the strain of driving. They prefer leaving early and coming back early to avoid peak hours. But many others prefer to use private vehicles.
Maintaining traffic discipline at the junction is a difficult job for traffic policemen because of the high density of traffic. The volume of vehicles has a direct impact on pollution levels too. Commuters, especially scooterists and bikers, are prone to health hazards.
Experts say the problem is due to “lack of proper infrastructure planning” as well as the “high volume of vehicles” itself. Traffic expert M N Sreehari says the only way to ease the situation is to reduce the number of vehicles. “Let people take to car pooling or use special bus services. We should look at reducing the traffic to a maximum of 35 cars per bus. That should be our goal.”
He also suggests a few other practical measures: better traffic reduction planning, ban on heavy vehicles between 8 am and 9 pm, expansion of roads from four lanes to six lanes, proper road marking and prohibition of parking for autorickshaws and sand trucks on the main roads. These measures can help reduce the congestion around this junction, as well as tackle the pollution problem, he says.