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Bangalore's elevated roads
silkboard - 10 December, 2007 | Traffic | Bangalore | CTTP | Elevated Roads
Dont just think the elevated expressway from Silk Board junction to Electronics City. Our city is planning for a few more elevated roads to speeden up movements in and out of the city:
1) Sirsi circle flyover to Outer Ring Road (Kengeri) - 6 km elevated. BBMP got started with this one last week by calling for RFPs (read here on BBMP website, mentions 4 lane elevated corridor).
2) Silk Board junction to Shoolay Circle. BBMP should soon be floating an RFP on this one too. Its a pretty long one, 10.5 kms going by the CTTP (here).
3) Yeshwantpur and Outer Ring Road junction - 5 km elevated. Things seem to be moving on the Nelamangala tollway project (we discussed recently). But it is not clear to me if the 5 km elevated stretch at Yeshwantpur is part of the tollway project.
I look forward to the design of these projects, especially for things like:
- Will there be a direct entry from E-City elevated expressway to the SB - Shoolay elevated road?
- Will these roads be access controlled, or tolled?
- How will these elevated roads 'integrate' with the Inner Core Ring Road. If that project (I think ICRR too is elevated) is still on, it could be cool to have these elevated roads connect well with ICRR. You could then traverse most of Bangalore on elevated signal free sections!
- Will these elevated roads have dedicated bus corridors? If no, then how do these roads fit with central government directive that transportation plans must think about people (as in public transport), and not vehicles.
- (linked to above) Without serious pubic transportation angles, how will these investments be justified?
[PS: Can't find old newspaper articles that talked about these three elevated roads back in April. But here is a blog post that reproduced them]
COMMENTS
I don't think Shoolay Circle to Silkboard junction is anywhere close to 10.5 km long. It is closer to half that distance. I need to check on Google Earth. I wonder then what the 10.5km refers to. Srivathsa
Elevated Roads Welcome, but Priorities must be Right
Naveen - 10 December, 2007 - 08:43
As Srivathsa mentioned elsewhere, BBMP Commissioner had stated recently that they have scarcity of funds to maintain existing roads. Thus, priority should automatically be to reduce traffic volumes on roads so that roads do not have so much wear & tear & be difficult /expensive to maintain. This translates to developing better & efficient public transport that will cater to a much wider base of users. Highways should mostly cater to those vehicles that are in or outbound to/from the city, & generally not for intra-city commuting with private vehicles. So, higher tolls can be charged & only a limited no. of intermediate descending /ascending ramps should be provided in the design. If these expensive elevated toll roads are to be built thro’ private funding, it should be made conditional to have segregated BRTS /public transport bus-ways with elevators /escalators at bus stops for those that need it. Merely building it under pressure from industrialists & ‘car lobbies’ with public buses operating in mixed traffic conditions will result in more use of private vehicles & an increase in vehicle population in the city. This is a recipe for further congestion later & these methods of increasing roadways to solve congestion will only result in even more larger no. of private vehicles.
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