Bengalooru - Nelamangala Tollway on NH4

I use this road about once a month to travel to Devarayandurga and other temples in the Tumkur region. The works are going on indeed. This road is a pain to take during peak hours.

It is mostly used by workers working in Peenya Industrial Area to travel between the former and Tumkur.

A light rail connecting Tumkur and Yeshwantpur would alleviate a lot of problems on this road and displace a lot of buses that use this road.

[Note: promoted to a new post : Elevated toll way pics]

The brisk pace continues. The Elevated Road construction has reached it's final phase with only 19-20 pillars remaining to be connected ( the final half a km ). I only wish they speed up the earth filling work for approach roads of the fly overs along this route ( on the non elevated sections ) so that the main carriage way can be opened for the traffic. once this is done, it shall be much easy to complete under the bridge sections as most of the traffic goes over the bridge. I still feel that if they work hard this project can be opened for traffic in the next three months.

The Elevated Section ( bridge ) construction has reached it's final phase with  just 5-6 more pillars are remaining  to be linked. In the next couple of weeks this 4.5 km overbridge road shall be more or less complete. The bridge has four lanes. the road  below has six lanes. In addition there are  service roads on both the sides, two lanes each.

Lamp posts are being errected both on the elevated and non elevated  sections for the illumination.Even the plants are being planted on the median.

But the earth filling work for the ramps of the few overbridges are still taking more time. The company seem to have reduced the resource deployment for reasons best known to them.

According to NHAI website, the project should complete by March end 2010. But in reality it is not possible. looks like the company is getting an extension of 3 more months for opening the road.

hi,

since the june deadline is not so far......can i ask if any of you have any details about any updates regarding the tollway...?

 many thanks pratap.... U know I am mainly considering writing to either NHAI or navayuga concerning re-greening the stretch....... As it might already occured to you that this stretch is now almost barren and would get be a lot more humid than before... Do you see any greening of this stretch....? atleast after the tollway gates at parle.....! adding to this... dont u think the service roads near peenya is dangerously close to the footpaths  (if any)  and what about the width of the service roads itself.... I think the service roads itself are designed to force commuters to take the tollway... Please correct me if i am wrong

 The work pace is also very slow for some reason..no sense of urgency anywhere

No sense of cleanliness or safety measures. Its like a poor cousin of BETL. I wonder why PIA guys dont take this up as an issue, the road below the flyover is seen to be believed. There are dangerous debris strewn all across the road. Jalahalli cross resembles some of the poorest of poor countries in this world. You cant believe you are in Bangalore.

Balaji/Pratap you should post snaps here as I dont travel frequently along that stretch.

The buzz is that the Nelamangala Tollway is going to be thrown open for the traffic on 15th of August. The NHAI site still says the completion date is July 2010 !

Yesterday I traveled through this and it is true that most of the work is complete. but considerable finishing work is pending in the main carriage highway. The service roads are far from completion.

Perhaps they are planning to open the ccarriage way and there after focus on service roads and other pending works ? One thing is sure, till 14th august midnight there shall be work to complete. Even after that dont be surprized if the D day is postponed citing some or the other excuse.

I shall update again post 15th August. 

One more bottleneck on Tumkur Road

BANGALORE: It turns out that the joy was premature for regulars on the busy Tumkur Road. Initially, they were elated over road widening and commissioning of the elevated highway between Goraguntepalya and Nelamangala, particularly as the drive from Nelamangala to Goraguntepalya takes just 20 minutes.

Alas! what has ruined everything for them is the half-hour crawl before reaching Yeshwanthpur.

This is because a major portion of the national highway (NH 4) near R.N. Shetty Plaza has been taken over by Namma Metro for the construction of the Yeshwanthpur Industrial Town Station.

The result? While those bound for Nelamangala have it easy, what with also being supplemented by a service road, Yeshwanthpur-bound vehicles have to squeeze through a 10 foot-wide space, creating a classic bottleneck.

Read complete story at:

Source

For about a week now i travelled on the  expressway and everytime the security guards are warning the 2 wheelers and the 3 wheelers not to take the expressway and take the service roads instead. they said NHAI has banned entry of 2 and 3 wheelers.  Another classic case of discrimination (in my opinion). They also told me that the toll would be collected for all  wheelers from 25 of sep. Dont know how far is this true. THey had also displayed the "on trial run" banners everywhere on the expressway.

i guess its not fair to exclude 2 wheelers and 3 wheelers.

A fair way though is to put up minimum & maximum speed limits and let the vehicles which travel on the expressway adhere to it. I know for a fact 3 wheelers cant do it. Some of the 2 wheelers can but wont be safe for them. This will mean they have to have cops pulling up vehicles which travel slower causing backups. What they are doing now is a lower effort way of enforcing the speed. Not garunteed that lorries which travel up there will be faster than the autorikshaws. This speed limit way should be extended to all corridors of the city.

NHAI puts up these things precisely because our cities make these highways into city streets by opening up businesses & facilities directly to interstate infrastructure. NHAI want to prioritize interstate speedier movement of goods & traffic without having to lock us down but  we want to colonize their expressways with our autorikshaws also, given a chance we will put up a building with a door opening on to the expressway :)

except for the 'all elevated' stretch of about  4 Kms starting from ring road junction on Tumkur road ..till a little after Hesarghatta jn

Its an excellent drive with no issues of any sort..Tumkur's 70 Km from Blr and this shd be done in an hour easy once the entire stretch is opened..it takes 15 min more now since the 4Km is not opened yet.. 

'Flying over' the NH 48 jn is the best part of this road..its brilliant!

Except the 4.5  kmts flyover from CMTI to Kennametal Factory, the expressway is open for the traffic.Even this flyover looks to be ready in all respect and should be waiting for a VIP date for the opening !

It just takes 10 minutes to reach Nelamangala from Kennametal /Parle where  toll booth is located. Vehicles zoom at high speeds. But the following are the concerns :

1. At many places people cross the road and this is highly dangerous considering the speed at which vehicles move.

2. Trucks use the main carriageway as parking lot at many places even now.

3. Absolutely no lane descipline and it is common  to see the slow moving trucks using right most lane forcing others to move zig zag. This could lead to serious accidents unless checked.

4. You can find debris , stones, pipes etc on the live road at many places and this is simply dangerous.

5. They dont switch on the street lights during the  night despite opening the road.

I hope the company and authorities look into these issues before things go wrong.

 @Balaji,

I had noted two issues with allowing 2,3 wheelers in my comment -  speed and safety.

By arguing that speed should be the only criteria for allowing a vehicle on the expressway, I guess you are also implying that a two wheeler can travel at the minimum speed limits expected of an expressway. On an expressway, cars, multi-utility vehicles and buses can travel upwards of 80 KM per hour without exceeding their safe operating limits. However scooters and even 100 cc motorcycles will be close to their upper operating limits in terms of safety if they operate at that speed. At that speed, even a tiny pothole on the road can cause the driver to lose control which can be fatal to him and the pillion rider.

I grant it that Lorries travel quite slow in India. However on multi-lane highways, they generally stick to one lane and do not make abrupt left or right movements. Our two-wheeler brethren one the other hand are adept at making abrupt movements and weaving from left to right between vehicles.

If a car or a Volvo bus passes a slow Lorry at double its speed (say 100 KM/Hr), it is not going to startle the driver of the Lorry. However such a maneuver can cause a two wheeler driver to lose his balance. Another aspect to consider is that since a two wheeler doesn’t take much space, other drivers will attempt to pass it while staying on the same lane thus endangering the two wheeler driver. Drivers of larger vehicles cannot take such liberties with other large vehicle, and they will wait for the other lane to clear before passing.

There is also this small problem with this phenomenon called Bernoulli Effect whereby a heavy vehicle passing close to a small one at a high speed exerts an attracting force on the smaller object. A Volvo bus passing close to a two wheeler at a high speed can cause enough attraction to cause the two wheeler to lose balance.

Finally if a lorry and a bus going in the same direction graze each other slightly while passing, they may lose some paint or get some dents, but people are not likely to die. In contrast if a fast moving vehicle grazes a two wheeler, the two wheeler is going to topple and fatally injure its occupants.

My observation while travelling  is that most fatal accidents are caused because the drivers do not maintain a safe distance between each other. While the blame for such behaviour usually lies with both the drivers, in the case of an accidents involving two wheeler and larger vehicles, it is the two wheeler drivers who have to bear the brunt of the crash. So in the interest of their own safety they need to be segregated from other high speed heavy vehicles in Expressways.

You have a point about the service roads on highways not being in a good enough condition. However the solution is to fix the service roads and make it safe for the smaller and slower moving vehicles.

At last, the long-suffering motorists on the western and northern parts of the City got some relief with the a 4.5-km stretch of elevated highway between Nelamangala and Yeshwanthpur (CMTI) junction thrown open to traffic on Friday.

The Elevated Highway has reduced to a mere 10 minutes travel time between Nelamangala and Yeshwantpur that used to take 45 minutes.

The stretch, part of the 19.5-km toll road, is elevated up to Widia factory, levels off to some distance and is again elevated for a distance of a few kilometres at Dasanapura and Nelamangala.   

The stretch below the elevated road will continue to be toll free as it comes under the City limits, but motorists have to pay the toll on the main road beyond the City limits.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/119814/nelamangala-10-min-away.html

Yes, NHAI has a good record of delivering on time..indeed its a commendable feat..

However the major traffic issues with ORR jn on Tumkur road will kind of take the sheen away from this project..BDA needs to get cracking up and fix this..

To make ORR signal-free at Tumkur Road, a 450m deviation will further be taken, which will go through the side of the air force land and adjacent to the high tension line and will join the ORR on the other side of Tumkur Road. Further at Tumkur Road, an underpass will be made. What work has been done between Hebbal flyover and Central Silk Board junction, will be repeated in this stretch from Hebbal flyover to Kanteevara Studio as well, with a budget of Rs400 crore to Rs450 crore.

http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/dna-daily-news-analysis-mumbai/mi_8111/is_20100227/bda-cracking-outer-ring-smooth/ai_n51275959/

No idea whats with this stuff...btw have not checked on site but dont see a high tension line there at all!

today evening some executive style guys at nelmangala gate [near 1st Jas toll gate] told riders to use service roads;when i said i commute daily, they said 2&3 wheelers r banned. seems like a conspiracy as a ban might be there only on the ypr widia flyover. clear discrimination. lorries hog all lanes at 30 kmph. and service roads are for local traffic, and dangerous. nhai does nt see the unnecessity of the flyover, i met 1 lorry and 3 cars on it today.