Trial run leaves only travails behind

Trial run leaves only travails behind

Motorists in a bind as MAHARANI COLLEGE JUNCTION AND KR CIRCLE underpasses open

Senthalir S. Bangalore



Efforts to ease traffic in the city appear to be heading nowhere.
The scores of flyovers and underpasses built in the city to provide a permanent solution to the problem, have only ended up pushing the bottlenecks to points ahead.
The newly built underpasses at Maharani College junction and KR Circle on Seshadri Road, which have now been thrown open for trial run, on Tuesday gave Bangaloreans a taste of the catch-22 situation they are in.
The net result of the new underpasses has only meant, that the huge snarls that used to build up at Maharani College junction is now pushed to KR Circle.
In fact the earlier traffic hold-up at Maharani College junction became the norm after a flyover was constructed at Anand Rao Circle to remove the traffic bottleneck at the circle.
"It took more than 15 minutes for the traffic to just move from Mysore Bank Circle to KR Circle. The junction has led to absolute chaos, especially during the peak office-going hours. Earlier, there used to be massive congestion near Anand Rao Circle, later it moved to Maharani College and now KR Circle has become the next target for all the traffic chaos and confusion," said Krishnamurthy G, a commuter.
There were eight traffic police personnel deployed on Tuesday morning to control the movement of traffic in the area.
When contacted Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Praveen Sood only said: "I have no comments to make."
However, once the peak hours ended, traffic appeared to be moving smoothly on the stretch. "Vehicles are moving smoothly and there is no congestion now at the junction," said Krishnamurthy H, a traffic police posted at KR Circle.
He added that since the underpasses were thrown open for traffic only on Monday, it would take time for people to understand the new routes, after which traffic movement would automatically get streamlined.