Thank God they weren't waiting for the elections (as might be the case with BIAL). The wait was for Ugadi. Flyover work seemed to be 98% over and then halted as if on purpose 2 weeks ago. They laid that last layer of tar at some spots starting yesterday, and here we are. Two yuga(di)s after the work started, its finally open!
What will be interesting to see now? One, how will they manage the traffic flowing from those huge apartment complexes. As noted here earlier, the plan is to make them go do a U-turn under the bridge if they want to cut across the traffic. That indeed is the plan. The median is closed at the foot of the bridge on Kundalahalli side, and the road to do the U-turn under the bridge is open and clear. Let us see if the apartment public will breach the median to save themselves the U-turn round trip of about 400 meters.
And the second thing to watch and predict is - resulting chaos on both sides of the bridge. Expect the small stretch between the bridge and ORR to be choked and chaotic as hell. And Kundalahalli cross too would need some work to keep the left turn (towards ITPL) free.
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SB - Thanks for the Pics & Update
Marathalli bridge completed, at last !
I had thought that IRCON would take a few more months to open this - remember they took 5 full years to complete the KR Puram bridge. This is a great relief for all those bound for ITPL /Whitefield. I think they should put the divider all along right from ORR till about 500-600 mtrs past the bridge towards kundalahalli cross - this wud prevent any chaos on both sides of the bridge.
BTW - what do you think of the Metro alignment for phase2 - shd it go straight past kundalahalli or shd it turn left & veer thro' all the commercial areas of whitefield as I have been suggesting ?
Wonderful
Great news SB. This will also reduce the traffic density on KR-Puram Whitefield main road (all HMV and buses had to use this route till the bridge was completed).
In executing projects if BDA i bad, Indian Railways (IRCON) is horrible. Sometime back i was talking to a BDA official regarding this project and he pointed out that the railways have a rule that when a bridge has to constructed over a railway line, it is only they who can construct it. However the cost of the bridge has to be borne by the civic authorities like BDA, BMP, etc. In case of Marathahalli bridge, the ramps were to be constructed by the BDA and the actual bridge over the railway line was to be done by the railways. If you had noticed the BDA had done their work quite sometime back itself. It was only the bridge over the railway line that was pending for a long time.
The rule that bridges over railway lines should be constructed only by the railway authorities has to be changed. Since BDA,BMP come under the jurisdiction of the state governement, it is easier to pressurize and ensure that these entities complete their work. The railways is a mammoth beast - nothing can move it.Uneven joints
At last, it is completed. Thanks to BBMP for that, though some questions remain about their shoddy work. Why is it that whenever BBMP lays roads, they never scrape up the existing layers and re-lay, but just lay one more layer on top? This leads to the road levels rising even over the medians in some cases. Also, when they encounter existing bridges/flyovers or drains, they do not taper down the new layer at the junctions, thus leaving a difference of almost six inches. This is terrible for bikers and cars when you hit it unexpectedly even at 15-20 kmph. My son tells me that this is the case on the new marathahalli bridge too...Will the BBMP learn to do this properly?....Madhu
Madhu
newspaper reports - reasons for delay
As per BDA engineers, one reason for delay was due to SWR asking to raise the height of the bridge (to allow for electrification of their line). Another reason cited was the delay in acquiring some private land around the overbridge.
God knows if SWR asked for the change after some work was already done (hope they paid for the wasted money in that case), or if SWR merely delayed the planning (engineering design) activity. I do recall observing that they started doing the "new" section of the bridge on the south side (towards Aishwarya apartment first), and then seemed to switch to building on north side instead. Don't know (first of all if I observed things right) if the change was due to SWR's objection or the difficulty in acquiring private land.
Newspapers are done with their 4 paragraphs announcing the opening, and once in 3 months 'coverage' of the progress. Nobody will ever take the effort to find out why the project ran so late (six months, then 1 year, and finally two years). Nobody will ever bother to check if there were cost overuns. And we will keep having delayed projects even after this one.
BTW, total cost was about Rs 14 crores they say. So, would 14 x 20 = 280 crores be the rough cost to turn ORR into a signal free corridor !? :)
marathahalli
Going good so far
So they have built serious looking medians (better than those small cement bricks that people move and volunteers like GLTS fix) on both ends of the new railway overbridge. So there is reduced 'entropy' on both ends, and residents of slowly-getting-filled-up apartments must be getting used to taking U-turns.
But, just before they put up these hard medians, traffic police had temporarily put up metal barricades, and those were getting moved (rather breached) every evening and early morning. Going by the width of those median openings, some enthu bikers must have been doing it. I am sure they will be back. We don't like U-turns as a nation you know. We are a democracy, every citizen is equal, so is every house, or every apartment complex or every shop, so everyone has equal rights to get a cut in the media next to his/her residence or business.