JOIN USBuilt on solid concrete blocks with only a single motorable underpass, the mammoth cable-stayed bridge in KR Puram has proved to be poor in both design and practicality. Stumped by the massive traffic gridlocks it triggers daily, many want it even demolished.
They called it India’s finest bridge and just left it hanging there! The Indian Institution of Bridge Engineers honoured it with the “most outstanding national bridge” award in 2009, and assumed it would grow in stature. And yet, the KR Puram cable-stayed bridge decayed disastrously to end up as a monumental disaster, a massive trigger for traffic gridlocks of mammoth proportions.
Hopelessly tired by the tough traffic management task at the site, an assistant sub-inspector suggests in utter frustration: “Demolish the bridge completely. It serves no purpose.” For a multi-crore infrastructure project once touted as the city’s pride, the image couldn’t have got a bigger beating.
Majestic, the 230-metre-long bridge looks from afar. But underneath lie absolute chaos, a mad, rambling mess of crowded approach roads and gridlocked side roads, cursing commuters and boisterous vehicles of every kind. Trapped in this daily mess are thousands of office-goers heading to ITPL, Whitefield, Mahadevapura, Manyata Tech Park, Marathahalli and beyond.
Fatal design flaws
Eleven years ago, when the then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee commissioned it on Republic Day, 2003, the bridge appeared set to eventually become a model in traffic decongestion. But the city’s explosive vehicular traffic growth severely exposed the fatal flaws in the structure’s design. The long, unending queues of vehicles showed just how clueless the bridge designers were.
The crux of the problem is this: The massive glut of vehicles that land up on Old Madras Road from Outer Ring road has only a single opening under the bridge to get across to the other side. The incessant flow of traffic to the Whitefield IT hub gets severely cramped at this point. Result: Massive kilometres-long traffic pile-up.
Obviously, the bridge designers never expected this. Neither did they ensure a smooth exit for rail passengers alighting at the KR Puram station right underneath the bridge. For, if they did, they would have made provision for at least half a dozen underpasses and ease multi-modal commute from rail to road.
The few pedestrian crossovers that exist today are too pedestrian in their upkeep. Filled with slush and poorly drained, they are not even fit to walk. As motorists struggle to get across the only cross over point amid a chaotically managed system, the bridge remains wasted in its practicality.
Bus stop bottleneck
The only apparent beneficiaries of the bridge are motorists speeding across to KR Puram proper, Hoskote and beyond. But the wrong placement of a bus stop right at the mouth of the approach ramp creates a bottleneck for them too, immensely slowing down vehicular passage.
Five years ago, the Bangalore City Connect Foundation had proposed a bus bay 300 metres before the upramp of the bridge. If implemented in toto, this would have eased the traffic buildup on the bridge’s main carriageway. Today, the bus bay exists, but so do the stoppages on the upramp. The consequence of this half-hearted attempt is visible during the morning and evening peak hours. But nothing can beat the chaos that ensues before extended weekend holidays, as a traffic ASI on duty at the spot for over three years points out.
He says, “Buses headed to Kolar, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are stranded atop the bridge for hours. Eight to ten policemen aren’t enough to manage the mess. It is a sight to behold.”
It is clear that the crowds that throng the bridge mouth are unaware of a KSRTC satellite bus stand in Baiyappanahalli, meant exclusively for buses that head out of Bangalore. “No one goes there. KSRTC should have had the station somewhere closer to the bridge.”
The real estate is so developed in the vicinity that any new bus station there is clearly out of question. The debate then takes everyone back to the original bridge, a structure that should have been perched atop pillars and not on solid blocks of concrete.
Truck movement is prohibited till 11.30 in the morning and till 7.30 during the evening peak hours. But this is small mercy for commuters who struggle through the rush hours: 7.30 am to 11 am and from 4.30 pm to 7.30 pm. Early morning commute often clashes with the arrival of long-distance trains at the KR Puram station. Haphazard parking of buses, cars and two-wheelers along the side roads has only made matters worse.
The City Connect Foundation had highlighted the plight of pedestrians, struggling with luggage to get across the bridge. Since the underpass is not high enough for a skywalk under the bridge, the only option could be an underground tunnel. This could be linked to the bridge side road to Indiranagar and beyond.
Yet, this might be too much to expect from the bridge designers. A skywalk that exists now is too far from the bridge mouth. Passengers alighting buses from Kolar side risk their lives walking across the ever-busy road.
Requesting anonymity, traffic constables complain how they struggle to streamline vehicular flow while ensuring pedestrian safety.
Not multi-directional
Urban commute expert, Sanjeev Dhyamannavar shares a traffic ASI’s fatalistic view of the bridge. “Demolish it and replace it with a multi-directional flyover built on pillars such as the one at Hebbal. Signal-free underpasses could run underneath. This will ensure a free passage to all directions. The current bridge caters only to the Old Madras road traffic, side-stepping incoming vehicles from the Outer Ring Road side,” he explains.
Any change, structural or otherwise, will have to take shape fast. For, the second phase of the Namma Metro project is bound to intensify the traffic problem at this spot manifold. The extension of the Metro line from Baiyappanahalli to ITPL through KR Puram, with a station to beat, is sure to pose a stiffer challenge to traffic management here. The message is clear: Quickfix solutions will not work. The alternative needs to be long-lasting, even if that means opting for the demolition job.