EXPRESS EXIT

EXPRESS EXIT
The much tom-tommed Inner Core Ring Road and elevated expressways, which were supposed to remove gridlocks and save travel time by 50 per cent, have been shelved as the BBMP develops cold feet over imposing a users’ toll to recover costs
MANASI PARESH KUMAR


It was glamorous, had scale and, above all, was considered eminently feasible. But Bangalore’s dream of decongesting the central business district and of speedy, hassle-free commute took a body blow as the plan to build the Inner Core Ring Road has been aborted. Though the official word is not yet out, sources within the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) say that the project is practically null and void.
The 29.9 km Inner Core Ring Road was a Rs 3,000-crore project proposed in 2006. It was to start at Yeshwanthpur and go through Magadi Road, Binny Mill Road, Sirsi Circle, Chamarajpet, Minerva Circle, Dairy Circle, Hosur Road, Trinity Circle, Ulsoor and other areas before coming back full circle to Yeshwanthpur. This project was expected to reduce travel time by almost 50 per cent.
“When the Detailed Project Report was submitted for the project it was to be constructed at the same level or grade. But the hurdles, including utilities shifting and land acquisition, were too tedious. Therefore we came up with the Elevated Express Highway but found that the cost went up drastically,” said KT Nagaraj, Superintending Engineer, Major Roads Project.
SIGNAL-FREE CORRIDORS
To justify the cost of the project, the BBMP would have little choice but to burden road users with a toll. “We could not have burdened our tax payers and so the elevated expressway has been shelved,” said Chikkarayappa, Chief Engineer, Major Roads Project.
What Experts Say Prof C E G Justo, Retired Professor of Highway Engineering, Bangalore University
Comprehensive planning for a growing city like Bangalore is next to impossible and therefore the stopgap arrangements come into play. With increasing traffic straining the city roads, we have to look at Road Based Infrastructure based on effective mass transport because that is the only final solution. Road widening, flyovers, ring roads are not really a remedy. In Singapore, you need government permission to introduce a new set of wheels on the road and that is given only when an older vehicle is taken out. But in India, we do not have such restrictive measures and therefore the planning needs to be done accordingly. Even the metro solution needs to keep in mind that Bangalore city will grow further, pushing the BBMP boundaries. Residences will shift out of the heart of the city and move away and to keep the families there along with their vehicles we need to ensure connectivity. Metro has to take that into consideration. The Big 10 or the signalfree corridors which run close to the proposed ICRR will now act as a more economic substitute for the project. The first elevated expressway that will be substituted with a signal-free corridor is the 3.3 km stretch between Rajajinagar entrance and Yeshwanthpur Junction.
The entire Dr Rajkumar Road stretch from Okalipuram to the soap factory in Yeshwanthpur will be signal free with four underpasses. “The underpasses will be located at Navarang Bar and Navarang Theatre, 10th cross road which leads to Mahalakshmi Layout and Vivekananda College,” Nagaraj said. This road with a PSU of more than 10,000 vehicles, is also the artery connecting Bangalore to Hubli, Tumkur, Mangalore and Udupi among other places.
The project is currently at the concept plan stage and is awaiting government approval. The BBMP will be constructing a six-meter underpass that would take away the four signals in the stretch. At present, the road width is 24 meters and the proposed plan will require an additional acquisition of two meters on either side. But with the proposed metro line, is that possible? “The metro line runs overhead and there is an obligatory gap of 30 meters between the pillars, so I don’t see any problems with our project,” said Chikkrayappa.
The first phase will see the completion of the four corridors: Rajajinagar to Yeshwanthpur Old Airport road to Vellara junction, Silk Board to Vellara Junction and Mehkri Circle to Hope Farm via Jayamahal and Murphy Road. Work on all four corridors is expected to begin in about three months.
What Experts Say Sanjeev Kumar B H, Country Coordinator, Global Road Safety Partnership
While planning traffic solutions one should not forget that Bangalore is a radical city. Keeping this in mind, the new Comprehensive Development Plan had clearly emphasised on traffic solutions in concentric circles. Among those suggested were the Intermediate Ring Road, Satellite Town Ring Road and Peripheral Ring Road. The Inner Core Ring Road was conceived as a boundary meant to demarcate the Central Business District of Bangalore City and regulate traffic that flowed into the CBD at a digestible level. However, with the proposed signal-free corridors, the main purpose will be defeated because what it does is bring all the traffic into the CDB before diverting it. For example, the proposed signal-free corridor from Silk Board Junction to the Vellara Junction would only move the traffic problem from one point (Silk Board) to another (Vellara Junction). An ideal solution to the problem would be to have signal-free corridors along with the ICRR. What Experts Say R K Mishra, Member of ABIDE
I do not wish to comment on the Inner Core Ring Road Project because I am not aware of any plans of scrapping it. But the Big 10 signal-free corridors are certainly an economic measure running close to the route of the ICRR which will ease 80 per cent of Bangalore traffic that uses this routes and they are the way forward. What Experts Say Prof M N Sreehari, Advisor to Government of Karnataka for Traffic Transportation and Infrastructure
Bangalore is really a dead city when it comes to infrastructure development, especially in the case of traffic solutions. Signal-free corridors or elevated expressways all require road widening and property acquisition and all of these measures are just a quick stop-gap solution or cosmetic surgery. Flyovers which were expected to ease the traffic congestion only created more problems because there is no space for dimensions or geometry. So clearly, all solutions have not been working because the city is unplanned and unprepared for development. Bangalore can accommodate only 10 lakh vehicles and about 1,200 licences are issued everyday by the RTO. So the
only way we can reduce traffic woes is to to control the traffic numbers.
The government has to make a policy regulating the number of vehicles. We also have the added threat of five lakh Nanos on our roads in the near future. How do we manage? A congestion fee based on the volume-capacity ratio of the road and mass transport is the need of the hour. Besides, the metro rail (whose delay is costing us about Rs 50 lakh everyday) we will also need a mono rail to handle the load.