Marathhalli, closer than you thought

Marathhalli, closer than you thought
BDA to open two flyovers on the Silk Board-Sarjapur route in a week, cutting travel time by half on this stretch
Sahana.Charan @timesgroup.com


Your commute from Silk Board Junction to Marathhalli on the Iblur-Sarjapur stretch just got shorter. Two flyovers on the stretch - the Agara flyover towards Marathhalli and the Iblur flyover - will be thrown open to the public in the next few days, albeit unofficially.
The project, which includes three flyovers - two of them at Agara and one at Iblur - will not just ease traffic at the two busy junctions but also make the Outer Ring Road signal free for commuters taking this sretch.
The Rs 93.94-crore Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) project has been executed by Nagarjuna Construction Company. The Agara flyover, connecting Silk Board Junction to Marathhalli, will open for public use by July 10, and the Iblur flyover is expected to be thrown open in a week.
“We are, unofficially, opening these two flyovers to ease the traffic on this stretch to some extent. Also, once the Agara flyover from Silk Board to Marathhalli is thrown open to the public, we can concentrate on the construction of the second flyover at Agara, in the opposite direction (Marathhalli towards Silk Board). Because of the heavy traffic flow here, we were finding it difficult to continue work at a fast pace on this particular stretch,” BDA Executive Engineer Nagaraja Murthy, working on the project, told Bangalore Mirror.
The entire project, including the second flyover at Agara, will be completed in September, he said. This will mean free flow of traffic to Silk Board, Bellandur, Marathhalli and Sarjapur.
While BDA officials insisted that the flyovers were being opened to speed up work on the second flyover at Agara, sources said the idea was to complete one phase of the work before the inauspicious “Ashaada” month (which starts from July 12) began.
The flyovers will come as relief for staffers of tech companies on the Outer Ring Road-Marathahalli stretch. “It will really help people going from Bellandur towards Agara and those coming from Silk Board to Bellandur and Marathhalli, as the traffic will be free flowing on both these sides. Definitely the travel time will be reduced. We had deployed private security personnel to man traffic at Iblur and Agara junctions and are now planning to redeploy them at Bellandur and Marathhalli junctions, as there are chances of a traffic pile up here. But the opening of the flyovers is definitely good news,” said Vishwanath Seetharam, Facility Manager, AOL and General Secretary, Outer Ring Road Companies Association.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
AGARA JUNCTION FLYOVER (from Silk Board towards Marathhalli) Length: 691 metres Width: 12 metres Number of piers: 30
IBLUR FLYOVER (connecting Bellandur to Agara) Length: 642 metres Width: 11 metres Number of piers: 20