The Traffic Police comments:
Flyovers are believed to be escape routes from the chaos that reign on any city’s thoroughfares. But not in Bangalore where they appear more as flights of imagination in shoddy traffic management. In fact, most of the City’s flyovers are mere leaps from one traffic bottleneck to another.
Commuters say that most flyovers lack proper planning and farsight. Traffic snarls are a common sight at both entry an exit points of several flyovers. Though several flyovers are wide, they are not well connected with the arterial roads.
A top traffic police officer in the City took time off to answer some of the questions posed by Metrolife on managing traffic on flyovers. We asked him why the need for a policeman atop certain flyovers in the City, when they are meant to be fast-tracks and self-regulatory?
The officer says: “This is the case at Richmond Circle. It was done to make optimal use of the flyover and to facilitate easy traffic movement into the one-way on Residency Road and draw traffic from Richmond Road.”
Bus-stops located close to flyovers pose a threat to commuters and pedestrians as well. The police say that this is one problem they've noticed in places like K R Puram and efforts are on to relocate bus stands.
Flyovers are not free of traffic violations. An abrupt U-turn near flyovers, vehicles criss crossing, and people crossing flyovers are a common sight. “We need to regulate this through more intensive patrolling,” says the officer. The purpose of constructing flyovers is to ease traffic movement and share the traffic load of the main road. Traffic blocks on flyovers have made commuting a challenge today.
Police officials say they’ve no ready made solutions to ease traffic snarls. “Flyovers are meant to ease traffic at some heavily congested junctions and provide a supplementary route to traffic. But they cannot decongest whole sectors. They are not magical solutions but limited alternatives to a specific problem at one point of congestion,” reasons the officer.

BDA’s comment:
Vishnu Kumar, Assistant Executive Engineer, BDA: “Traffic jams on flyovers is unique to Bangalore City alone and is more of a traffic management issue rather than a defect in the planning of the structure. Most flyovers in this City have been designed to solve the issue of traffic congestions which has served the purpose. If people are complaining about jams on flyovers, it is because of poor traffic management by the concerned authorities as well as people who do not follow rules or cooperate in the proper functioning of the flyovers. We don’t need longer flyovers like the one in Hebbal within the City as the existing ones are designed keeping in mind the traffic density in the respective areas.”