In continuation of their protest against the proposed widening and straightening of Hunsur Road, citizens and activists staged a demonstration here on Sunday and drew attention to viable alternatives. They formed a human chain and expressed their opposition to the project.
The genesis of the ongoing protest — led by Mysore Grahakara Parishat (MGP) — stems from the decision of the city police to straighten a curved stretch of Hunsur Road identified for excessive number of accidents. The solution was based on a report prepared by a private agency and commissioned by the local authorities to suggest a solution. Based on it, the government has mooted a ₹12-cr. project to widen and straighten a portion of Hunsur Road, according to the MGP.
However, its in-house experts in road design and construction — H.R. Bapu Satyanarayana, a former Chief Engineer in the Ministry of Surface Transport and Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Sudhir Vombatkere with a PhD in Structural Dynamics from IIT-Madras — dismissed the agency’s report as flawed.
The two pointed out that the cause of accidents was different and hence the solution too has to be different. “Hunsur Road has a median barrier and hence head on collision was not the cause, but excessive speed and irresponsible lane changes were the causes. This called for speed limits and creating speed breakers as per the specifications of Indian Road Congress,” they added.
They further said that the banking of the road at the curves (the outer edge of the road must be higher than the inner edge) to provide the drivers better control of the vehicles and at present the road was banked the wrong way with the inner edge being higher than the outer edge.
“While this may provide for easy drainage of rainwater, it reduces the drivers’ control over their vehicles,” the two added.
MGP president S.D. Saokar said the scheme proposed by the two experts has several advantages over the project proposed by the government. “It will reduce accidents by liming the speed of the vehicles while straightening the road may tempt the drivers to opt for higher speed thereby increasing the possibilities of accidents,” he added.
Besides, it would cost only a small fraction of money to changing the banking of the road curves apart from saving more than 100 trees that is under threat of being felled for road straightening.
