““Instead of ourselves claiming that congestion has been reduced, we have asked an expert to study the impact of short term measures on traffic. The ORR-airport line of BMRCL is under construction and a metro station will come up near the BMTC depot near Hebbal. In the future, Hebbal will become a major junction. Hundreds of inter-State passengers come to the point to board buses to Hyderabad and other points. Widening of the service roads and construction of bus bays would help in avoiding the congestion near the skywalk. It has been years, but there is no sign of completing the project. Defence land was acquired and several trees were axed for the project. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had proposed to construct a service road from the Hebbal lake side towards Kodigehalli Gate. He added that ₹24.49 crore had already been spent for the stalled project. In the letter, he stated that previous construction work of adding additional lanes was sanctioned in 2015-16, and after the works started, it was stopped in 2019. In a letter to the Chief Minister, Krishna Byre Gowda, Congress MLA, has demanded that the State government take up the projects and widen the flyover by adding an additional loop. After Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) raised objections, saying that the project would come in the way of the proposed Namma Metro expansion, the project was stalled. In 2019, the BDA stalled the construction of additional loops to the existing flyover for the benefit of traffic coming from the airport and moving towards the city. Meanwhile, the proposal to add additional loops to existing lanes is not new. Separate tenders need to be floated to take them up”. The State government has entrusted the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) with implementing these projects as long-term measures.īDA Commissioner Rajesh Gowda said, “There are four components to the infrastructure projects, and the board has deliberated on these projects. Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RITES), which had studied the junction, had also come up with various infrastructure projects to clear the traffic in the area. There will be more congestion once the metro work advances”. In addition to this, due to metro work, the traffic near signals from Allalasandra flyover till Kodigehalli Gate has increased considerably. The road below the flyover is narrow and cannot accommodate the traffic moving towards Tumakuru Road and also those turning left to access the ramp to move towards the city. While some said there is some relief, Revanth Kumar said, “I do not see any impact of the measures taken. Motorists, though, gave mixed responses about the impact. There is a need for comprehensive measures to clear the traffic in the area.”” Vidyasagar R, motorist However, whatever they do now is temporary. It could be another factor easing the traffic on the flyover to some extent. Traffic police are also seen manning the traffic even on the flyover. ““I have noticed that congestion has reduced to some extent. As part of the measures, traffic diversion notices were erected near the junctions for the traffic coming from the airport side. The BBMP recently introduced short-term measures to ease the traffic at Hebbal Junction. The authorities claim that these measures would result in reducing the congestion by 15 to 20%. To ease traffic, the chiefs of the civic bodies recently visited the spot and came out with short-term and long-term proposals.Ī slew of the short-term measures were announced as a part of the decongestion effort. This has resulted in an increased usage of the flyover, turning it into a traffic gridlock.įor more than a decade, the civic bodies and the State government made multiple proposals to decongest the junction. However, most of the projects either remained on paper or were halted midway through the work. Over the years, the city expanded and vehicular population increased drastically (it has crossed the 1 crore mark), and more importantly, the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) also opened. The flyover, with several loops, also helped people travel towards Yeshwanthpur and K.R. Almost twenty years ago, the Hebbal flyover, a gateway for vehicles coming from National Highway 44 to enter the city, was opened to motorists.

Traffic gridlock