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Shifting Bottlenecks

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Widening Bangalore-Bellary Road or shifting bottle necks? Any one who has come towards North Bangalore must have surely experienced the Hebbal flyover. Though normal by international standards, but by Indian and more specifically Bangalore standards it is a nice piece of work and the most scenic part of the journey is the view of the Hebbal Lake on the left. As some one who has seen and stayed in the north part of Bangalore much before the flyover came into existence, I must confess the construction was never delayed and it came up just about the right time, unlike other structures in Bangalore which come up much after the need is felt. But are the things really rosy? Don’t we face problems as other road construction projects in Bangalore? Honest answer- Yes and No. Yes, once you are on the flyover. A big no before you hit the flyover. There is big bus stop just before the Flyover and the road is not very broad. So you have multiple traffic issues: 1. Bus which move Northwards towards Yelahanka generally travel on the right lane, move to the left to pick up passengers at the bus stop. 2. The same buses then cut to the right once they are ready to move. 3. Passengers boarding the bus are anxious to enter the bus first to grab that precious seat on the bus. 4. Pedestrians want to cross the road and act as part time traffic constables, showing the stop sign to approaching vehicles. Some smart pedestrians form small groups and show that they have the numbers on their side and all approaching vehicles have to stop. 5. The small road on the left of the flyover is the route to Boopsandra and is a one way towards North. But for some drivers it is the shorter route and hence the preferred route, even tough it happens to be a wrong way. They cause more congestion as they have to take a U turn to proceed on the flyover. Considering the width of the flyover, they sometimes have to take a reverse after they try a U turn. This causes a real bad jam. The wrong side vehicles cannot go further and need to reverse, the vehicles moving towards North just want to proceed further (rightly so) and want to teach the erring driver a lesson and come up as further as they can. But by the time their anger subsides, they cannot go back because vehicles would have already pilled up. The vehicle behind are going crazy and just honk, this happens dung evening office hours when every one is tired and wants to go home. What a jam! 6. Some vehicles have to take the road on the left of flyover to Boopsandra, but they know that the left lane is slow because the Bus stop, so in the small area between the Bus stop and the flyover, they swivel to the left over taking the buses, avoiding pedestrians and just about squeezing through without touching the flyover. Best of luck to them if there is any vehicle coming on the wrong side ( Point #5) I have tried to show these in a diagram. Point #6 is too difficult to show. So it is left to your imagination. Original Here Relief is on its way and the State government has a plan to expand the Bangalore Bellary road. If you were one of those pessimists who say that it will remain a plan then you will be surprised that work is already in progress and expansion of the road and tree felling is on brisk progress. I am not one of those guys who says NO to tree felling for road expansion, so what is the point I am trying to make? My argument is that expansion will only make the drive upto the bus stop comfortable, the issues addressed above will remain the unresolved. One of the flaws which cannot be resolved without a major reconstruction is the fact that the flyover is two lanes and even if you make the approach road three lane, there will be a bottle neck to enter the flyover. Let me put forth my suggestion for this problem: 1. The flyover cannot be expanded, so to avoid the upcoming bottlenecks, the buses should continue to move in the leftmost lane and not move over the flyover. The barricade should be removed and buses should cross the Red light under the flyover and rejoin the road proceeding towards Yelahanka after flyover. 2. Over head pedestrian walk way to be constructed, a large barricade to be constructed on the median so that pedestrians do no cross by walking on the road. 3. Hopefully, with so much bus traffic, people will stop coming by the wrong way. The below diagram explains the proposed solution. Original Here Let me list out the drawbacks of the proposed solution: 1. Bus travel will increase slightly 2. The waiting period at the Red light will increase for traffic on other side direction (Ring road traffic). 3. Utilization of the bridge will reduce. As per my view the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, this problem would not have arisen had the Hebbal flyover been three lanes. However as I mentioned the flyover is a good piece of work by our standards and we should think of how we can address the immediate issues, instead of blaming the past. About the Author Srikant Suddekunte can be contacted as articlesfromsrikant@gmail.com. He is working in the IT industry and writes articles on new developments in IT industry and on latest issues and trends.

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admin's picture

hebbal f/o on gmap

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View Larger Map zoom in to see details mentioned in the article.
tsubba's picture

hebbal

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this is good stuff and we need to find a way to get somebody in the B* organizations to read this. your solution is good. it can address some of the bottleneck issues, it will also address the problem of wrong way drivers by allowing them to take a left at the b'sandra road intersection. though the flyover will still have preference because there is a railway crossing at grade, so those on the left lanes south of the bridge will try to cut or merge into the right lanes. another option is to restrict lane width with to 2 lanes south of the flyover, this will force traffic to sort itself at different locations downstream and prevent clogging up the flyover. and imo, is more efficient than trying to sort a 3 lane traffic in a concentrated place. yet another option is if they widen the road south of the flyover they must make "median" for the left lane from some convenient point way south. the ped crossing thingie is tricky. because all across india, ped bridges are lying underutilized. yet what you say is absolutely correct, jay walking on a NH is a serious downer. this one is really tricky. some out of box thinking needed for this.
silkboard's picture

the railway lines

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sorry for this off-topic point, but each time I see any of those maps, I just burn up seeing all those railway lines and stations. Why the hell can South Western Railway not try to do something with its tracks to server Bangalore's commuters? I bet the only reason is - because its wont be a profitable venture.
thampan's picture

the disadvantages outweigh the benefits

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in my opinion the disadavantages outweigh the benefits. 1) it will not only be the buses which will take the newly opened up routes. it will be other vehicles as well. and the local village vehicles will no longer go over the flyover. there were huge protests when the road was closed and somehow peace prevailed at the end. this will open up that pandoras box again. 2) point 5 is just violation of traffic rules. it has to stop period. put a traffic cop and empower him to collect 2000 bucks from each violator. automatically this will stop in a few days. 3) a better option is to shift the bus stop slightly south. it may mean taking some more land from the UAS. have four lanes at that spot. 2 existing lanes. 1 for the bus traffic as you have drawn, but it merges back to the flyover. 1 for other vehicles which go to bhoopasandra. ( on the left most side of the road. ) lane to bhoopasandra || bus stop - lane for buses || 2 lane which leads to flyover have the buses stop only on the lane marked for them. the major problem as i see is that the buses stop on the main road which leads to the flyover. ( point 1 never happens. buses move to the left but park at an angle. effectively the road becomes a single lane with the buses parked.) the cop can also collect fines from people who try to cut before the flyover where the buses merge back into the main road. ( no left turn at this point.)
tsubba's picture

underbridge

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i think he is saying that one of the ways to break 3 lane to 2 lane bottleneck is to open this lane, which which provide access even if slow and at grade. do you know the reason behind those protests? and what are the drawbacks of this freeing this road ?

about the bustop, according to a study there is evidence that bus drivers will not use a bus bay when traffic volumes exceed 1000 vehicles per hour per lane. Drivers explain that the heavy volumes make it extremely difficult to maneuver a bus out,and that the bus must wait an unacceptable period of time to re-enter the travel lane. there are some ways to tackle this, i'll get back on that.

 

christopher's picture

Same problem prevails almost at all the flyovers

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The same problem prevails almost at all the flyover. There is generally a busstop just before or after the flyover. Even though it is not a designated bus-stop, bus drivers are forced to stop there as lot of people wait there and eventually a bus-stop is formed there. Reason - people change their direction of travel just near the flyovers. This highlights the desperate need for local transfer points.
Sajith's picture

Sevanagar Flyover

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Have any of you guys used the new Sevanagar Overbridge.People take U-Turn's right in the middle of the flyover.All one way rules on the side ramps are violated blatantly.
christopher's picture

Yeah I use the

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Yeah I use the Sevenagar/Banaswadi flyover very regularly. I wanted to mention this here...but thought it itself deserved another topic. While people make U-turns before/after the flyover, they even take U-turns even on the flover right in the middle. This new problem has started only after the new ramps have opened. Need to observe the pattern more to understand why this happens.
thampan's picture

shortest route possible

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If i can save a minute, let me do it .. all you buggers who are getting affected, wait till me , the king of india, finishes this maneouver. Well that sums up the reason for all this .. We try to take the shortest route possible, whether it is overtaking on left side or turning in the middle of a fly over. coming back to hebbal fly over. 1) local residents wanted to keep the railway cross open as they were using it for their daily commute a) railway didnt want to open up the cross as it meant another cross to man b) traffic police didnot want to open it up as this meant another traffic flow below the flyover 2) getting into and out of the bay will be easy, a) if the bay is long and wide enough. b) the merge back area is long enough. I dont think our bmtc bus divers will have any difficulty in mergin back seeing the way they drive on bangalore streets. ( that huge trailer buses move like snakes on the road) 3) disadvantage - 1) the road below is very narrow. if this is opened up and you have large amount of traffic flowing through the same, then the probably of that road getting jammed increases exponentially. ( a single break down/worng way driver can cause this). 2) the railway cross will be a bottle neck and you will have endless queues. 3) there will be vehicles from the other side also adding to this. 4) traffic on ring road is going to get affected. ( major disadvantage). Looking at the scenario, is the current traffic on the flyover so dense that it needs 3 lanes ? not in my opinion. It is a question of better managing the approach in the current scenario. Going forward, as the airport opens up, there will be an increase in traffic, but there are two more roads from the city ( one existing, one planned) that will lead to the airport. So better divertion of traffic and more awareness ( of the routes) should help this cause. after thought- there are actually 5 roads that can connect up to airport. extreme ends ------------ 1) tumkur road - connection possible near hessarghata or further down 2) road from ITPL - silkboard posted about this once middle ------- 3) yelahanka road 4) state highway which starts near hennur on ORR 5) new proposed expressway
tsubba's picture

thanks..

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thanks for that explanation of traffic flow there. agree with the bays ideas, especially about mergin in and merge out lengths.
rs's picture

Hebbal Flyover and Pedestrians

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I completely agree that it is ridiculous that the SWR does not make use of the existing train lines and stations. Its just that I suppose our politicians cannot make enough money through corruption on this - it would perhaps only cost a few crores as opposed to 1000s of crores so there isnt enough incentive. Anyway, coming back to the issue at hand - it is amazing that the flyover designers have made absolutely NO provision for pedestrians. As a result one finds lots of people walking along the flyover - especially on the part from Bellary road towards the ORR in the Tumkur direction. In the mornings there are little kids with schoolbags on that stretch and its only getting worse. In a country like ours one cannot simply cut and paste solutions developed in other countries - especially the US. In Germany, for example, even though there are few pedestrians provisions are made for them to cross.

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