No end in sight to traffic mess at Jalahalli Cross

Thousands of commuters put themselves at risk every day as they wait for city and inter-city buses at Jalahalli Cross. But authorities have failed to come up with an effective solution for the mess.

It has been nearly three years since the Basaveshwara bus terminal at Peenya was inaugurated. But thousands of buses still pick up passengers at Jalahalli Cross, choking the congested road.

More than a thousand private buses and about 3,000 buses belonging to KSRTC and BMTC pick up passengers below the flyover at Jalahalli Cross.

“The Circle is almost always crowded with passengers coming onto the middle of the road while waiting for the buses. We have tried our best to clear the area. But what can they do when there is no alternative,” a senior officer in traffic police said.

For three months, the KSRTC made a rule not to pick passengers from Jalahalli Cross. “We made a rule that all buses should pick passengers only at the Peenya bus terminus. But people didn’t change. They just boarded private buses which continued to take passengers at Jalahalli Cross. After suffering a loss of Rs 4.5 crore, we decided to do away with the rule,” a senior KSRTC official said.

The Basaveshwara bus station at Peenya, built at a cost of Rs 39.25 crore, is lying in waste as passengers prefer to board buses on the roadside. Commuters, however, noted that the Peenya bus terminus was half-a-kilometre away from the main road and had no connectivity.

Traffic police opined that all the buses, including private bus, should be terminated at Peenya terminus. “It is not time to think whether the bus station is scientific or not. We need to find a solution urgently. A decision should be taken at a policy level to terminate buses at Peenya station. If BMTC buses provide connectivity, then the problem is solved,” he added.

The situation has worsened over the last 15 days, after the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) took up maintenance work on Tumakuru flyover.

“We plan to finish the work on both the lanes in the next two weeks. We shut down one lane on the flyover for three to four hours in the morning and night. There is no alternative as we have to maintain the quality of the road,” a NHAI official said.