‘Residents right to be concerned about Indiranagar flyover’

Bengaluru

The proposed Indiranagar flyover has come under heavy scrutiny by the area’s residents who expressed several reservations about the flyover. The mega project would be built at a cost of around Rs 1,300 crore and connect Swami Vivekananda Metro Station to Silk Board via Ejipura. Mobility expert Vivek Pai of Sustainancy Consultants stated that there was much work that should be done before drafting the DPR. “With such projects, there is a detailed study that needs to be done with seven days, traffic survey as well as origin destination surveys.

Since the flyover is roughly around 11 km and passing through lot of busy areas, concern is that it should not congest certain area rather than decongesting these areas,” he said. B-SMILE said that the Indiranagar flyover will also integrate with the Ejipura flyover, with multiple ramps to climb on and off the elevated road. The DPR also stated that due to the anticipated increase in traffic, such a flyover is necessary to provide capacity for the commuters. “With the Ejipura flyover also coming up, we found that connectivity is required up to Old Madras Road. So on both sides, the flyover will have to be extended, both on Madiwala side and Ejipura side.

So one down ramp is being constructed at Ejipura and the flyover will extend from there on until Old Madras Road,” B-SMILE Director (Technical) B.S. Prahlad. However, urban mobility expert Vivekananda Kotikalapudi, stated that such an approach is not good for building such a project. “I don’t know how they are getting the figures, but building such lengthy flyovers should not be done by assuming that traffic will increase,” he said. With a proposal to recoup part of the investment into the flyover by integrating into property taxes, the flyover will also bear a very real monetary cost to the owners of the properties the flyover passes through.

“The idea of a value capture financing model is not something that I think is right for this area since the impact is too limited to read the financial benefits for the residence,” Pai said. Vivekananda also highlighted the costs to everyday life on Indiranagar’s 80-Feet Road for businesses, residents and visitors, similar to when the road was being white-topped. He also stated that the project design was also not ideal as it incorporated two 90-degree turns into the flyover. While he was averse to building flyovers for decongesting urban areas, he did suggest alternatives to the current proposal. “I think trying to force fit a really long corridor is probably not necessary.

Shorter stretches can be looked at where actual choke points really need to be worked on and ensuring that the same eventual result is achieved of better travel time from Old Madras Road towards Hosur Road towards Silk Board through shorter interventions. Probably connect from Old Madras Road via Suranjan Das Road till Old Airport Road. From there, you let them take Old Airport Road and come. And then from Domlur, once you are on Old Inner Ring Road, it is a fairly wide road, fairly fast,” he said. On flyovers in general, he said, “They just attract more vehicles. It is not that it is going to be really helping in any way. Anybody understands that the root cause analysis has to be done. And to address our traffic problem, we really need to improve our public transport network.”