Connect Old Madras Road and Whitefield Road Campiagn

The waiting is over !!!. We had waited enough for the Railways and BBMP to bridge the gap between Whitefield Road and Old Madras Road and ease the life of thousands of  techies, school children, students, women  and people in general who have to shuttle between these roads everyday to meet their needs.  The BBMP and Railways have not an moved inch and are well known for their notoriety in delaying the  building of an RUB/ROB connecting Whitefield road at Singanayapalya and Old Madras Road near ITI colony gate. Before the BBMP and Railway wake up from their slumber, hundreds of lives would have been lost lest we don’t realize it now.

The cable-stayed bridge was once touted as the ultimate panacea for all traffic woes of K.R. Puram, a critical, crowded, chaotic entry point to the city from the Eastern side. For its architects, the bridge was a marvel engineered to perfection. Yet today, the bridge has emerged as problem number one for many road users, caught in traffic jams triggered by vehicular growth and the structure’s poor planning. The irony was stark and clear. K.R. Puram residents, who, for decades, had to just cut across the Old Madras Road to be on the other side, have found the bridge to be an insurmountable obstruction. The citizens are forced to travel an extra 3 kms to take a U turn near the Pai Layout and are subjected to shell out extra bucks for these additional fuel and stay on these chaotic roads for another hour.

The crux of the issue is that there is no direct connectivity between Whitefield Road and Old Madras Road which has led to piling up of traffic  from ITPL to  the U turn at Pai Layout during the peak hours. From about 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. and from 4.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m., traffic on Old Madras Road virtually comes to a halt. With vehicles of employees of information technology and business process outsourcing firms moving in and out of the ITPL-Whitefield area and joining trucks getting out of the Outer Ring Road, one can imagine the chaos. In the midst of this three ring circus, a amubalance screams for way to save life by accessing emergency health services from the nearest hospital. 

It is a common sight to watch the two-wheelers moving on the otherside road risking  their lives by negotiating  on coming vehicles to enter a narrow cave right under the tracks near KR Puram railway station. Just that it’s not a cave, but a namesake subway. The railway subway built 40 years ago is located opposite to the ORR whitefield Road junction. The two wheelers take their life risk to manoeuvre through it and to have to wait until traffic from the opposite side passes them. The circus is performed by the two wheelers to save petrol, time and to avoid chaotic traffic upto Pai layout junction. But, when it rains, the two wheelers are subjected to much more hardship as they have to brave the stagant water and skiddy terrain in the subway.

The death warrant for whitefield road will be served in  October 2012, when  works on the Namma Metro phase 2    elevated line and stations is expected to take off. For the next five years, the road may turn into a circus pavilion.

The people living in B.Narayanapura will witness some sort of siege with the choc-o-bloc traffic on Whitefield Road and Outer Ring Road. How safe are the residents to use these roads. From Traffic snarl to a Traffic Catastrophe, Our lives are under great Risk.

Instead of praying after the arrival of the worst scenario, like the kannada saying goes ‘Sankata Bandare Venkata Ramana’ Let us start cracking and carry out joint actions with resident associations and realize our dream for traffic free connectivity to Old Madras Road.

What we want:-

• Reconstructing the old bridge near the cable stayed bridge.
• Construction of New Underpass at Singayanapalya on the  Whitefield Road with ITI colony gate on Old Madras Road.
• Widening of  Railway subway opposite to the outer ring road- whitefield road junction
• Widening of Roads in front of  K.R. Puram Railway station