BIAL connectivity - ORR as tolled or access controlled road?

8 November 2007 - 7:53am — silkboard

If you look at it, the delayed and much hyped BIAL expressway would anyway not solve the connectivity issue. The problem would be in getting to the point in ORR from where BEL Road/NH7 or this expressway would emerge. What you need is quick way for folks to get out from the center or east/south/western corners of the city.

That Minsk Square to Hebbal tunnel road is one such thing. God knows if that project would ever get executed. But there is another, and cheaper option with BBMP/BDA that I think hasn't been fully explored: Outer Ring Road. The east loop of ORR - the stretch from Silk Board to Hebbal via Marathahalli and Banaswadi - almost throughout, has good space on both sides of the road. Service Roads exist on some stretches, or is being built in the rest. Also, barring a small stretch of about 3-4 km I think in Hennur-Banaswadi area, ORR has six lanes.

It shouldn't take a lot of money, just need two things on this stretch of ORR.

1) Service roads on both sides of ORR. And fewer entry points from Service Roads into ORR. May be one every 3-4 kilometer.

2) Regular traffic enforcement to make it easy for all to get to Hebbal Flyover. Paint clear lane markers and enforce lane discipline. Ban slower vehicles (autos, tractors) on ORR proper, make them take the Service road. Ban parking on ORR.

With similar measures on BEL road/NH7, and I can bet that you would get to BIAL from Silk Board junction in 50-60 minutes.

How much would it cost? Let us try a guesstimate. You would need 2-3 more flyovers on ORR to bypass crowded intersections. One such big one would be required at K R Puram on Old Madras Road junction, say 70-80 crores. 2 more flyovers in addition to the ones already sanctioned (there are 2 in progress as we speak), add 30 x 2 = 60 crores. Assume Service Road completion to cost 100 crores. Add it all up, you get an almost signal free 30 kilometer stretch of ORR for about Rs 300 crores.

Assuming similar costs to enhance the National Highway from Hebbal to BIAL, you could solve the BIAL connectivity issue to a reasonable extent at an expense of about Rs 600-700 crores.

How does 600 crores compare with Rs 1000 crores+ budgeted for the BIAL expressway? Even if ORR/NH7 enhancements were to cost as much as BIAL expressway would, remember that money spent here is going to help a lot more people than just BIAL air passengers.

Doing above would take much less time than the expressway, and should give BMRC some breathing space to plan and execute a train to BIAL.

What say? Sounds practical or am I dreaming non-sense here?

Comments

Similar Ideas

tsubba - 8 Nov 2007 - 5:49pm

Rajendra K Misra's Ideas From ToI, Nov 8,2007. As we know, South and South-East Bangalore have experienced tremendous growth due to concentration of IT/ITes industries and related residential communities. These communities are the biggest users of the airport and unfortunately also the farthest from the airport. This corridor extends from Banashankari, Kankapura Road, J P Nagar, Bannerghatta Road, Hosur Road, Electronic City, HSR Layout, Sarjapura Road, Iblur, Marthahalli, Whitefield, KR Puram and Old Madras Road. There are two main roads connecting South/ East Bangalore to the airport — the inner route and outer route: Outer Route Electronic City - Sarjapura Road - Whitefield - Hoskote- Budhigere/ Sulibele- Devanahalli. State Highway-35, also called HKA Road, starts from Anekal/ Chandapura and goes to Hoskote via Whitefield and Sai Baba Ashram. This further connects to Devanahalli airport via either NH-207 through Sulibelle or via Budhigere Road. This road is ideally suited for people going to airport from Hosur Road, Electronics City, Sarjapura Road, Varthur, Whitefield and Kadugodi areas. Inner Route Outer Ring Road (ORR), the only road to reach airport for all of South Bangalore, HSR Layout, Koramangala, Iblur, Marthahalli, KR Puram, Banaswadi, Hennur and Ramamurthy Nagar areas. These are existing routes and suggested improvements can be implemented in next three-six months. ROUTE 1 Section from Hosur Road to Whitefield and Hoskote (both from Anekal and Chandapura) is already completed by PWD except few small stretches which must to be completed and PWD should certify the completion to a monitoring committee. The biggest bottleneck is the Railway Over-Bridge (ROB) at Sai Baba Ashram. Work was started almost a year ago but it is going at snail’s pace and Railways are responsible for it. This needs to be expedited. Road from Hoskote to Devanahalli via Budhigere is under development by PWD but works needs to be expedited. Another road from Hoskote to Devanahalli is NH-207 via Sulibele, which is a wide four-lane road and should be used to divert trucks from Devanahalli going towards Chennai so they do not use Hosur Road and ORR. This road is in need of urgent repair. PWD needs to coordinate with NHAI to strengthen this road. With these improvements, travel time from Electronic City to airport will be 1.5 hours and from Whitefield it will be 45 minutes. ROUTE 2 Outer Ring Road (ORR) from Madivala to Hebbal to be converted to Restricted Access - High Speed Corridor with local traffic moving on service roads. ORR is the lifeline of inner city residents of South and East Bangalore extending from Banashankari to KR Puram and Hennur to Hebbal and only access route for new airport. ORR has six lanes with service road on either side, which are not in use as they have not been paved. Convert ORR from Silk Board Junction to Hebbal to a Restricted Access High Speed Corridor. Local traffic will go on service roads and through traffic moves on central six lanes. Entry-exit points are proposed at important junctions at about 3-5 km distance. Benefits *Total length of ORR from Madivala to Hebbal is around 30 km and to airport it is around 50 km. *With average speed of 60 kmph, this will reduce travel time from Madivala to Hebbal to 30 mins (from current 1.5 hrs) and to airport to around 60 minutes (from current 2.5 hrs). *Travel from Electronic City, BTM, Jayanagar, JP Nagar, Bannerghatta Rd to airport will take around 1.5 hrs and from Whitefield area it will be around 45 minutes. Implementaion & Monitoring There should be an an empowered committee which should be headed by chief secretary with finance secretary, PWD secretary and Urban Development Department secretary as its members and must have three members from public/ industry representatives. (The writer is a transportation expert and the Lead India representative from Bangalore) DETAILED PROPOSAL 1. Ban truck traffic from ORR (Hebbal-Madivala-Banshankari section) and divert it to NH-207 from Devanahalli to Hoskote to Anekal. 2. ORR from Madivala to Hebbal has dual carriage service road all along on both sides. These service roads need to be made operational and be used for local traffic. 3. Six median lanes (three lanes on either side) should be made access controlled using steel girders as on national highways. 4. Of six central lanes (three lanes on either side) — 1 Lane (in either direction) for BMTC buses/ airport shuttle buses. 5. Four central lanes (two lanes on either side) for high speed and through traffic. 6. Entry exit at approximately 3-5 kms intervals with flyovers so that through traffic does not stop. Entry-exit points at these junctions — Agram, Iblur, Marthahalli, KR Puram, Ramamurthy Nagar & Hennur Road. Already planned and budgeted for by BDA and BBMP, they need to be expedited. 7. All these entry-exit points should have same six lane ROBs/RUBs for through traffic so that there are no bottlenecks 8. Most of these junctions already have sanctioned ROBs/RUBs. Hence project implementation is not difficult.

How about this!

sharathiyer - 9 Nov 2007 - 7:20am

Why doesn't the government reconcile with NICE! That way we will have a nice road from all parts of the city till Hebbal! I guess most of the work from Hosur road to Tumkur road is atleast over!

Railways Should Pitch In the Scene

Vasanth - 9 Nov 2007 - 9:04am

There are many ways to reach BIAL airport - But, with increased number of travellers, it will always lead to congestion - We know how disciplined we are in running vehicles as we discussed in various posts such as 'Lacking Traffic Discipline', 'Murphy's Law' etc.. and ultimately it is the public transport which can rescue us. Railways laid the track to Chickaballapur in a hurry for the international airport sake. But, now it has kept its mouth very silent. The existing Bangalore - Chickaballapur track can be best used to serve the airport with PushPull + Airconditioned (Keeping in mind the probable foreign travellers) Trains. If the line is electrified, Delhi Metro like coaches which run on BG line can be run till the gate. Also it is no big deal for railways to put in some more money and extend the track upto Airport - Railways can earn huge money out of this - The existing Chickkaballapur line is making no profit. We have two lines to reach upto Yelahanka - 1 from Malleshwaram - Yeshwantpur line, other from Cantonment - Byappanahalli - Yelehanka route. The second line via cantonment is already electrified upto Byappanahalli - but this line will be almost always busy. 1st line Via Malleshwaram is not as busy as the second line and can be best used for this. From Electronic City, we have the Salem line which can be used Via Byappanahalli to link the airport. If we can have pushpull trains running every half an hour with 8 compartments with link trains from Byappanahalli to Electronic City, it would solve the big headache of driving on congested roads upto BIAL Airport. Electrification of the line and doubling of the track between Yeshwantpur / Byappanahalli to Devenahalli would increase the speed and decrease the waitings of the trains. To start with 'Something is better than Nothing' - Pushpull with diesel engines atleast to the gate of BIAL will reduce the burden of roads. Let us stop dreaming on 160 kmph high speed train and start using the existing infrastructure to the best possible way. Express rail link will take its owntime to come - So far I haven't heard any train in India travelling more than 150kmph -It is still a dream in India atleast.

Kheny Would Be Very Happy Man

Vasanth - 9 Nov 2007 - 9:16am

Enterpreneurs like Kheny would be ready to invest in express road link to Devenahalli - But, because of the politics involved and the hurdles created to NICE - even others would not be interested in doing this. Only companies like SKIL will do it!!! Second thing is whatever the road be, our drivers will create congestion by not having any discipline in driving.

Pushpull train to BIAL

vlnarayan - 9 Nov 2007 - 9:17am

Pushpull train from City centre to BIAL looks to be a very good option for the timebeing.. Hope Railways will atleast consider this now.

BMTC Shuttle Service

Vasanth - 9 Nov 2007 - 1:02pm

BMTC is planning for a Volvo shuttle service from Majestic and other key places to Devenahalli. Instead of having Shuttle Service running from central Bangalore, it would be great if BMTC starts smaller shuttle bus service using an Airconditioned Tempo Traveller from all the major routes with a 2hrs frequency along with frequent Volvo Service every 15-30 mins from Majestic. People will get options either to travel to their locality directly by waiting in the airport or if they cannot wait, they can go via Majestic which will reduce their Taxi fare. BMTC can identify a franchisee shop where people can book and board these Shuttle buses. These shops should not be on the main roads since it will result in traffic jams. Franchisees should load the luggage to the tempo travellers luggage compartment. Few key routes would be - Electronic City - Silkboard - Kormangala - Indiranagar route Bannerghatta Road - Brigade Road - MGRoad - Vidhanasoudha Bansashankari - Jaynagar - Lalbagh West Gate - JC Road - Chalukya - Palceroad Nagharbhavi Layout - Chandra Layout - Vijaynagar - Dr Rajkumar Road - Malleshwaram Hoskerehalli/Ktgpe - Bank Colony - Hanumanthnagar - Gandhi Bazaar - Chamarajpet route Rajajinagar - Basweshwarnagar route The list goes on .. BMTC can think better of this. Also, in western countries - Shared Van concept for Airport exists - These vans will be like Innova - bit larger with luggage at the end like City Taxis and 8 members seating capacity. They offer door to airport service. BMTC can even think of this.

Kheny's half!

blrsri - 9 Nov 2007 - 3:28pm

This was what Kheny had always been saying..that he would complete onehalf of the PRR from Hosur road to Tumkur road and the govt. can complete the other half..but alas our politicians..mostly the padmanabhanagar one..wants to build a PRR 100mts from the NICE road!! This is like the Basavanagudi flyover which has become a white elephant..addressing no issues!

ORR

s_yajaman - 9 Nov 2007 - 4:57pm

Pranav, there is a huge bottleneck in the ORR where it crosses the Tumkur railway line. I agree with you that improving ORR is the way to go. It benefits the most people. Given that the expressway starts from ORR - not improving ORR is meaningless eitherway. EC to airport @1.5 hrs should be reasonable. i think the EC angle is being given too much importance. I don't know how many of the 30000 people who will fly in and out of the airport are from/to EC. Srivathsa

Drive safe. It is not just the car maker which can recall its product.

Timings & ORR

tsubba - 9 Nov 2007 - 6:54pm

2 points... #1. Timings... what are the peak hours for bial? can they stagger bial peak hours, office peak hours, school peak hours and business peak hours? if most domestic bial flights are early morning, or mid afternoon and late night flights would the situation be as bad as predicted? the thing is if it becomes known for example that between 6-8 in the morning there is BIAL traffic, then prolly "others" can plan accordingly. schools can go from 8-9, 9-10 exclusively for office and so on. #2. ORR time and again ORR is coming up in our discussions and all ideas seem to be similar. some examples... rajat bhatla srivatsa there are other discussions of prominent intersections and junctions all on ORR. it is such an important artery and all solutions seems to be similar 3x3 service lanes, better intersection design -- all leading to access control. From what we know so far, in CTTP too ORR Improvements have been assigned Rs. 571 cr (169 km). The issue here is getting something done by march-april 2008. dont know where cttp is right now, what it actually contains, and whether its solutions are implementable by that time.

more on timings...

tsubba - 10 Nov 2007 - 7:06am

i was trying to see how feasible it is to stagger peak hours. from what I see, it dont solve bial connectivity problem fully, no siree, sir. the volumes at BIAL are simply too large - approximately, ~30K/day people flying in and out of BLR already!!! But it looks like staggering school hours, office hours and business hours, is doable, and, the rest of us, regular folks, can can see some benefits if that gets done. but first lets see if staggering helps BIAL. how many flights/day does bangalore(HAL) handle currently? cannot answer this fully. according to this report in DH it is ~300 domestic flights/day apart from international and cargo. there are other sources which say ~300 total flights/day. lets work with 300 flights/day. (apparently BLR sees 3rd highest domestic flight volume, ahead of even chennai) http://www.deccanherald.c... how are these 300 flights scheduled over the day? again, i cannot make out. saw a few sites which list flight schedules but cannot make out if they are current. Moreover, schedules at different sites didnot seem to match. in any case, eye balling the schedules, it appears that there is a peak in flight count during office hours, but flights are generally spread through out the day. i found another reference point. According to this report Union Civil Aviation ministry considers 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. periods as "peak hours." You board peak hours in BLR you land peak hours in DEL/MUM/MAS. So not surprising that UCA is trying to disincentivise flights during these hours and encourage flights during off peak hours. But, the plan has not gone flyingly, there was HC ruling against a PIL, flight operators dont like it and so on... http://www.hindu.com/2007... Technically, BIAL's stated capacity, according to wiki, is 27 flights/hour. (MUM, ~30 flights/hour). Though i would like to get a more authorotative & current estimate of this. they have improved apron, taxiways and all ... and i read a while ago that BIAL is going to have a more advanced ATC system and higher number of controllers than HAL - all this has gotto translate to higher capacity. In any case, Albert Brunner's preferred strategy is to spread the peak hour through out the day. He figures having improved the capapcity of BIAL to handle ~2700 pass/hour during peak hours, the way to increase capacity of the airport itself, is to spread the peak hour during the entire day. So Brunner prefers 2000-2700 passengers per hour all through the day. http://www.ibef.org/artdi... Remember, as huge a number ~30K/day of BIAL users is, our interest is in trying to see if rest of BLR gets some respite from staggering. For the rest of us, it means atleast a 30-40K airport travelling vehicles per day. so lets look at the what's going on in the rest of the city. the peak hours, as my granny in an old pete could predict, are in the mornings and evenings. but it helps to be scientific, here is what i pulled out from a survey on the BMRC site. Lets first look at existing conditions on bellary road(NH7) at jakkasandra, way north of ORR, far away from inner city traffic. (click on the images for clearer images) peaking to a competitive 3000 vehicles/hour during office hours yet stabilizing to a respectable 2000 vehicles/hour during the rest of the day. but remember, this is an artery, which collects volumes from a lot of feeders. so lets look at some feeders. 8-10 in the morning is when everybody is going somewhere. this where staggering school & college hours can come in handy. the kids start early, and come back home early. coming back to BIAL, looks like we'll need all the roads, expressway, rails, dedicated train, bmtc buses, orr improvements, air deccan avara air-shuttle and more. BUT, if say, the flights are scheduled during off peaks hours, say between 6-9 in the morning, which means they are on the road between 5-8 in the morning, then passengers should be able to get to BIAL fairly easily and well under the 2 hours predicted by TOI. dont tell B* doodes let them fix the mess. but there is a case for staggering school/college timings after all. for BIAL fliers, get their early, BIAL is gonna be WIFI-ed get some work done. If you are flying in, come here early and get some dose and idlis at our darshinis, before you move on and get your client done. ;) 40,000 people per day? steady people!!, stick to your roots people stop doing the frog dance stick to your roots people. :)

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