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18-lane autobahn to BIA - isn't it clearly an overkill?
Written By murali772 - 21 January, 2012
Bangalore Media Reports Transportation Infrastructure Flyovers and underpasses sustainable development
The ride towards Bengaluru International Airport and beyond will soon become a minutes-only affair with work under way to upgrade Bellary Road (NH 7) into an 18-lane autobahn with a high speed rail link (HSRL) embedded in it. The Rs 680-crore upgradation involves a 22.12-km stretch of the road beginning from Hebbal flyover up to Bachchalli railway gate, beyond the Trumpet Interchange leading to the airport. The autobahn will be 65 metres wide and have three-lane service roads on either side of the six-lane highway, besides the nation's first-ever six-lane elevated corridor running along the highway. Work, which began in September 2010, is expected to be completed by May 2013.
"The three-lane service roads have been planned basically to divert local traffic, including buses and non-airport bound traffic, while the signal-free highway and elevated corridor will cater to only airport-bound vehicles," said AK Mathur, chief general manager (technical), NHAI Bangalore.
NHAI authorities also said the upgradation of Bellary Road has provision for vehicle and pedestrian underpasses across the highway to facilitate easy movement for locals.
For the full report in the ToI, click here.
How come Prajagalu missed out on a discussion on this all important development? Some typical comments in the Hasiru Usiru Y-group, indicative of the members' general thinking, are extracted below:
A) certainly looks like the entire annual budget of Karnataka will never be enough. dont know what else is hidden and how the complete project will look like. if all the shops and houses will go and only the building of the Godrej, Prestige , L & T etc or others like them will remain - talk about a plan for total wipeout by restructuring north bangalore through forced urban renewal......
B) There are two things here that would be a joke if the whole thing wasn’t such a tragic waste:
1) All the expansion in the world won’t make airport travel much quicker.The guys in South and West Bangalore and in SE Bangalore will still have to plow thru one hour of the city before reaching this elevated strip of paradise. (Net gain may be 20 mins at most)
2) Is everybody on the elevated and ground level six lanes and in the HSRL supposed to be feverishly rushing to the airport ?
3) If the HSRL is used heavily, at least 4 lanes of this 18 lane Eden will become redundant.
4) Most people are anyway turning away from air travel and will soon take to trains if they are made modern and faster. Or are we supposed to add to global warming by burning fuel on these 18 lanes PLUS burning jet fuel with gay abandon ?
C) What happens when the traffic from all 18 lanes of this "autobahn" merges into the four lanes after herbal. Isn't that going to become a massive bottleneck?
D) Rational analysis is a lost cause when newspaper reporters are willing to dutifully express their awe at the prospect of "zooming down" this or that new monstrosity. Read any report about a new bridge. The words "zoom" or "fly" will inevitably used, even though few Indians have the contraptions necessary to "zoom" (motor vehicles). It is well established that these highways are of no use to buses, which most Bangaloreans use. Rational participative decision making requires an alert media capable of critical thinking.
E) One question that has always haunted me. why do the 30,000 odd people travelling to and from the airport every day, get so much much more attention and investment, when lakhs of people (commuters) travelling to the city railway stations, bus stands get such a raw deal?? Even the connection between the city bus stand and the railway station is such a nightmare,which can be improved with a tiny fraction of what is being spent on the 'autobahns'.
I too see this as a total overkill. But, apparently, the powers that be can't think of anything less than ultra-mega when it comes to namma Bengaluru. What do the rest of Prajagalu think?
Muralidhar Rao
COMMENTS
kamalakar pandit - 23 January, 2012 - 06:46
18 lane autobahn is not that useful !! to the local people like us. instead of having 18 lanes autobahn...they could have constructed underpass/flyover/ or combination of both at all the junctions with service roads,that would have been suffecient. Another criminal waste of money is HSRL...Instead Metro can run thru the same strtech covering all the areas enroute.
Govt wants sell Karnataka to Pvt fellows, so the so called infra
Sanjeev - 21 January, 2012 - 13:36
As u mentioned and brough out the things in a crystal clear, their is no question on how other modes like Railways, Bus Stand, Footpths for public to walk are in a real bad shape and more then 10Lakh people travell across the city for work, study, shopping.
Its very true on KBS & City station, Hebbal, Silkboard flyover, KR Puram connection and surrounding area,
At KBS, BMTC & City station Public need to do some exercise like climbup or climbdown & walk in sun or rain on footover bridge, do the urinal in stinking even public wants to pay & use, eat in filthy resturents, struggel to reach the platforms in KBS or BMTC Bus stand or City station. Reach the KBS or station in jampack roads, no need to complain on jams if u miss the train or bus, but if passenger misss flight due to traffic jam, it becomes big issue for the city.
My be its to do with : MP's, MLA's, Governer, Ministers, CM, PM do not use the KBS or SWR, or BMTC, so for them every thing to BIAL should be worldclass
As these city public can't bring investment to GoK, so called investers need to pump the money in Karnataka, so the infrastructure to be built for the investors and not for public interest.
Take the case with NICE road, state is handing over land in pleanty for NICE company in NICEway, but delaying to hand over the small land for Railways to do the doubling line between Bangalore & Mysore.
Take the case with L&T building Hotel in BIAL after 4 yrs of opening the airport, amount of public who had to check into city hotels because of this & land was given at free of cost to them in BIAL 6 yrs back only, is their any acountability on this, as city hotels are charging exhorbitantly for the ordinary rooms in Bangalore & effects on Traffic & other infrastructure???
So all the Infrastructure are planned for the investors who can bring black money and convert it into white and subsequently create artifical demand like diverting all the traffic to BIAL thru' only NH-7 and refuse to open the eastern side of entry for the BIAL terminal even though BBMP & BDA has built the 4 lane road with public money??? or even not utilizing the existing Railway Track to run train services during peak hrs with few infrastructure improvements.
If the GoK or GoI impliments simple solutions like above which are in public interest, so called investors will not get the RoI 20% and more, intern showing the public that they manage the things in much better way will be difficult. Hence we have HSRL, Autoban, BIAL, NICE, BETAL projects.
Closing Hebbal Lake or Jakkur flying club, taking away land from GKVK, encroaching on Lakes by NHAI are other things which we do't realize the implications in long term.,
idontspam - 21 January, 2012 - 16:11
That exchange on HU mail list pretty much summarizes what we feel about these things. Administrators have collectively lost the right to lead us to anywhere better.
You know what else we missed, the pathetic bunch of advocates who have shamed us by their behaviour over the past week. I have personally lost all respect for them.
Part of that investment if it comes for Majestic - SBC?
Vasanth - 21 January, 2012 - 16:46
Thousands of people come to Bangalore everyday by Train and how much they struggle hard to reach Majestic Bus Stand, climb steps to take footover bridge, again get down.. walk down all the way to the dirty and messy underpass, get down the stairs, pass through that mess, climb stairs to reach ground level, again climb stairs to reach that foot over bridge, check for the platform and getdown. Why not a monorail or an airport train like infrastructure to move people from Railway Platform to Majestic Platform.
Most of them are lower poor, lower middle class families. Are these problems do not come to the eyes of MLAs and MPs? It won't since most of these VIPs never have to undergo this pain since they use their Sedans and SUVs. Their problem is reaching a far off place in country or out of country when they use Flights. Their Sedans and SUVs are getting struck in traffic and hence they want to build these autobahns. How safe these autobahns are for our driving style as discussed in this post?
It will just become weekend race track for the youth leading to loss of life and disability. Even the visitors including foreign visitors have to spend a lot on Taxi. They have to depend on BIA Volvos. Why is Government not considering any sustainable way of moving people?
murali772 - 23 January, 2012 - 06:07
Well, Mumbai can't allow itself to be outdone the newbie Bengaluru, right? So, here's their answer - a 36 km twin-4lane coastal freeway.
Somehow, no Indian city city seems to want to follow the London, Singapore, New York, Paris models of disincentivising the usage of private vehicles.
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