7 months ago
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In a stroke to the Karnataka authorities and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar’s ambitious tunnel roadworthy project successful Bengaluru, the adept committee appointed by the Karnataka Urban Development Department to reappraisal the Detailed Project Report (DPR) has said that DPR had been prepared successful a hurry, relying connected lone 4 ungraded trial points for readying the tunnel, acold ‘too few’ for a task of this scale.
It besides echoed concerns raised astir the projected project’s interaction connected 1 of the city’s biggest lung spaces, the Lalbagh Botanical Garden.
“Positioning 1 of the passageway shafts wrong Lalbagh Botanical Garden needs to beryllium re-examined due to the fact that of biology sensitivity,” it recommended..
The committee, headed by Siddanagouda Hegaraddi, Executive Director (Civil), Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL), highlighted large shortcomings successful postulation studies too.
Why passageway roadworthy erstwhile metro volition service aforesaid corridor
The adept sheet highlighted that the projected passageway runs astir parallel to the planned Namma Metro line. The study noted that some the projects are designed to service the aforesaid north-south corridor of Bengaluru, and that without wide information connected however galore radical volition displacement from backstage vehicles to metro oregon buses successful the coming years, the justification for specified a costly task cannot beryllium verified.
“The wide apprehension of stakeholders is that the roadworthy passageway task connected the projected alignment volition go redundant arsenic it is moving astir parallel with the projected metro line. This apprehension could not beryllium addressed successful the lack of breakup of highest hr postulation information with modal stock and projected highest hr postulation data,” the committee observed.
Without close postulation data, lane requirements, toll projections, and congestion estimates stay unrealistic. “The DPR documents should intelligibly exemplify the justification to flooded specified apprehensions of the stakeholders with capable information and analysis,” the study recommended.
Weak postulation studies, deficiency superior information
Traffic studies were flagged arsenic ‘particularly weak’ by the government-appointed adept panel. The committee noted that the DPR lacked superior data, relying alternatively connected reconnaissance surveys and assumptions with nary tract surveys conducted. No archetypal measurements were taken to enactment lane and alignment recommendations. Key details specified arsenic mode-wise organisation of commuters, projected peak-hour traffic, and expected modal shifts to BMTC buses, metro, and suburban obstruction were missing.
Noting that the investigation based connected Level of Service, oregon LoS (rating of however creaseless oregon congested postulation is), to get astatine lane configuration request could not beryllium verified, the committee recommended: “The postulation projections to get astatine the lane requirements should beryllium based connected details successful presumption of Passenger Car Unit, oregon PCUs (a mode to number antithetic vehicles connected the roadworthy arsenic if they were each cars to cipher full postulation flow), duly taking into relationship the modal stock and estimated modal displacement owed to different competing modes of transport, specified arsenic BMTC, Namma Metro lines, and suburban rail, alternatively of LoS basis.”
Other method issues included introduction and exit ramps and intermediate lane configuration. While the committee acknowledged that ‘efforts person been made to find the entry/exit ramps successful the vicinity of existing signal-controlled junctions to debar postulation conflicts’, it warned that these ramps could origin congestion owed to merging postulation emerging from passageway and aboveground traffic. Intermediate lane configurations astatine Palace Ground and Mehkri Circle were said to beryllium insufficient, with the committee recommending that ‘a minimum of two-lane configurations should beryllium provided for introduction and exit ramps’.
Mismatch of ‘horizon year, lane configuration’
The committee pointed retired that the DPR considered a ‘horizon year’ (future twelvemonth for which postulation projections are made) of 2041, which is conscionable 10 years aft the project’s expected completion, alternatively of the modular 25-year play required for specified infrastructure projects. Based connected the disposable postulation data, request for the twelvemonth 2041 would warrant lone 2+2 lanes with paved shoulders. However, the DPR proposes a 3+3 lane configuration, which meets the 25-year projection. The committee said this mismatch means that either the skyline twelvemonth needs to beryllium corrected to 25 years, oregon the lane configuration needs modification.
Tunnel roadworthy lacks strategic, transport & biology case: Mobility Expert
According to a comparative investigation by mobility adept Sathya Arikutharam, who analysed the reports by the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) and that by the adept committee to reappraisal the DPR, some the committees independently recovered that the Tunnel Road Project lacks a strategic, transport, and biology case.
In his analysis, Mr. Arikutharam pointed retired that DULT’s ceremonial reappraisal successful November 2024 had already warned that the projected North–South Tunnel Road was not aligned with the city’s Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) oregon Climate Action Plan. It had suggested that the erstwhile BBMP reconsider the task and research lone abbreviated passageway segments wherever necessary, but the civic assemblage ignored these recommendations. Instead, BBMP went up and commissioned the DPR adjacent earlier the reappraisal process by the Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority (BMLTA) was completed.
Even connected the method side, some reports recovered the postulation survey to beryllium fundamentally flawed.
Mr. Arikutharam notes that neither the feasibility survey nor the DPR included superior postulation data, meaning nary tract surveys oregon real-time postulation counts were conducted.
