Mysore Road - Choke Point 1 - Guddadahalli Junction

The BBMP has propsed that the stretch from Sirsi Circle to Gali Anjaneya Temple on Mysore Road be widened. This involves chopping trees all along the stretch. These are already well-known plans from the news reports and praja discussions. There are a couple of estimates on the number of trees to be chopped some saying 50 and some 100+. But, lets not be get into the numbers. Whats important is to find ways to solve the bottleneck without chopping the trees, if any available.

Mysore Road starts from KR Market. Vehicles zip across from Town hall on the flyover for about 2.5 kms, pass over the Sirsi Circle, and get struck at the ramp of the flyover. Why ? There is a choke point immediately after the flyover (about 150mts away).

The picture above shows the road plan to the west of  Sirsi Circle. The Flyover bring in two lanes of traffic, the surface level slip road from Sirsi Circle brings another two lanes of traffic and there is two more lanes of traffic joining the 'intersection' from Chamarajapet, through the Albert Victor Road. That is six lanes of traffic merging into two lanes in space of about 100 mts. Add to this, there is a right turn into Old Guddadahalli immediately after, and hence the merged traffic should also re-align lanes so enable vehicles from AV Road to enter Guddadahalli Road.

There is a traffic signal installed about 200 mts from the end of flyover, only to enable the right turn into Guddadahalli. This means the traffic on the other side of the road - from Bapujinagar to Sirsi Circle/Flyover - gets stalled at the si. gnal. This creates long jams on both sides of the road. Peaks hours are terribly bad, Saturdays are worse!!

The solution to this issue lies in widening the junction to accomodate more vehicles. Long stretches of roads need not be widened for smoother traffic flow. Its time now for BBMP to widen junctions, as against road widening. This post has a plan to fasten the exit from this intersection.

Firstly, there are two small streches to be widened (marked in the picture above). On the northern side, the strech from DHL office to the burial ground - about 200mts - has to be widened.  On the other side of Mysore Road, the stretch from the end of Albert Victor road to the IOC petrol bunk (immediately after the present signal) has to be widened. This will mean loss of only 3 trees each on either side( two more have already been chopped off!!).

Another important change required at the junction is to remove the traffic signal. This can be achieved by a simple 7mts (two lane) magic box on the northern half of the Guddahalli-Mysore road junction. Illustration below.

This will assure uninterruped movement on the nothern side of the road - for vehicles from Bapujinagar side to Sirsi Circle. Post widening, there will be enough width (single lane)on the surface level for any vehicles from Bapujinagar to turn left into Guddadahalli.

For vehicles from Ch'pet or Sirsi Circle, removal of the signal will mean uninterrupted right turn into Guddadahalli. U-turns for the same vehicles will also become more faster, since they do not have to compete for the road space with the vehicles in other direction.

These two simple steps will help ensure fast movement of traffic, at only about 10% of the 17-crore budgeted for widening the road.

There are two further choke points - one near the Shell petrol bunk and another close to the Gali Anjaneya Temple. I will write on these two separately.