4 months ago
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Commuters taking the Outer Ring Road (ORR) volition person to brace for astir a twelvemonth of postulation congestion and dust, arsenic B-SMILE has planned to acceptable an 11-month deadline for concessionaires to implicit the ₹450 crore “international standards” facelift project.
BSMILE, a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), volition interval tenders successful 2 packages: the Silk Board-Iblur Junction stretch, estimated astatine ₹143 crore, and the Iblur Junction-K.R. Puram stretch, astatine ₹307 crore.
The SPV plans to statesman enactment successful the archetypal week of April aft completing the tendering process wrong 40 days. Initially, the program was to commencement enactment successful January and implicit it by November, coinciding with the opening of the Blue Line Metro. However, delays successful Cabinet clearance forced a alteration successful the timeline.
The task aims to revamp the 17.1-km agelong with high-quality roads, international-standard footpaths and rhythm lanes, and a well-planned autobus precedence lane. B-SMILE sources said, “The program is little astir decongestion and much astir promoting nationalist transport, though municipality planners presumption it arsenic an costly gamble.”
Traffic nightmare
B.S. Prahallad, Technical Director of B-SMILE, told The Hindu that an 11-month completion play was a tenable timeframe for a task of this scale. “The concessionaire has to instrumentality attraction liability for 10 years, which means the prime of enactment indispensable beryllium apical class. Therefore, we are extending a steadfast clip play to implicit it,” helium said.
The enactment volition beryllium carried retired with partial roadworthy closures. This is wherever the postulation constabulary volition struggle. The IT corridor is designed to grip 4,800 to 5,000 Passenger Car Unit (PCU), but it presently carries astir 9,000 to 10,000 PCU. With nary alternate roads to administer the excess load, the agelong already experiences prolonged congestion.
Partial closures for the task volition further trim roadworthy capacity, portion conveyance volumes stay unchanged. This is apt to treble question clip from existent levels, according to a elder postulation constabulary officer.
“Even if enactment is taken up successful prime patches, it volition make bottlenecks and elongate the magnitude of congestion. If partial closure is implemented, the effect volition beryllium the same, arsenic the reduced roadworthy width volition bring down the wide capacity,” the serviceman said.
These issues are expected to beryllium peculiarly terrible astatine junctions specified arsenic Kaadubeesanahalli and Marathahalli, and Iblur wherever postulation from Sarjapur Road converges. Congestion is besides apt to intensify astatine U-turns, which spot dense usage.
With nary scope for postulation diversion, the constabulary are near with lone 1 option: reducing the fig of vehicles connected the road. This, they said, could hap lone if companies allowed their employees to work-from-home, introduced staggered enactment hours, oregon adopted a hybrid model.
To sermon these measures, the constabulary person planned to convene a gathering with tech companies located on the corridor. “Earlier, we utilized to prosecute with 1 umbrella assemblage representing each companies, but that is improbable to enactment now. So this time, we volition telephone 1 typical from each company,” the serviceman told The Hindu.
R.K. Misra, Independent Director of B-SMILE, defended the task arsenic not simply a roadworthy project, but a broad infrastructure upgrade.
“We are processing wider footpaths to precocious standards, scientifically planned autobus stops, and, much importantly, autobus precedence lanes. Once the metro becomes operational, these walkways volition complement it by offering seamless connectivity. Through this facelift, we are not encouraging car usage, but incentivising and influencing commuters to displacement to nationalist transport,” Mr. Misra said.
The ORR faces an excess load of 5,000 to 6,000 PCUs that request to beryllium shifted to nationalist transport. The BMRCL estimates that astir 1.5 lakh commuters whitethorn usage the Namma Metro on this stretch. With the instauration of autobus precedence lanes, a fewer 1000 much could displacement to buses, provided the BMTC expands its fleet.
