The 326-m steel flyover, the proposal for which was cleared by the State Cabinet on Tuesday, will come up at Shivananda Circle on Hare Krishna Road — from Racecourse Road towards Seshadripuram.
The project, however, is being opposed on three counts — lack of public consultation, opposition to flyovers within the central business district and the view that the flyover will not resolve traffic congestion on the stretch.
Naresh Narasimhan of Citizens for Bengaluru, which led the citizens’ movement against the steel flyover that was proposed on Ballari Road, said flyovers do not solve the problem of traffic congestion but only pass on the bottleneck to another area. “Short pass-overs are necessary only where arterial roads intersect the feeder roads. The question we are asking the government is where is a mobility plan for the city, and how does this flyover fit into the larger mobility plan? Building ad hoc flyovers should stop within the core city,” he said.
Srinivas Alavilli, also from CfB, said that as it was done with the now-shelved Ballari Road steel flyover project, the BBMP should put out a detailed project report of this project in public domain and hold public consultations.
Traffic and technical experts have expressed doubts over the proposed flyover solving the traffic congestion. Traffic expert M.N. Srihari said the flyover at Shivananda Circle would not solve anything, and argued that the road geometry on the stretch would pose a huge challenge to build a flyover.
“Hare Krishna Road becomes narrower and bends as it touches Racecourse Road. This will give little scope for a service road for the traffic below,” he argued.
Jaigopal, former member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the BBMP, said the flyover was unlikely to resolve traffic bottlenecks on the stretch. “It is not the junction but the entire stretch from Racecourse Road to Seshadripuram Police Station which sees mild congestion. The proposed flyover will be flanked by bottlenecks and narrow roads on either sides,” he said.
