BENGALURU: Motorists cruising at 100 kmph on the newly inaugurated 10-lane expressway from Mysuru will be forced to reduce the speed of their vehicles to 10kmph when they reach the Kengeri junction. This is because the width of the expressway suddenly narrows to a four-lane there.
With this bottleneck causing traffic jams, officials from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) are now considering ways to widen the stretch near the junction.
When a TNIE team visited the entry point of the expressway near Rajarajeshwari Medical College on Monday, it found traffic pile up even at noon. Officials, who were monitoring the traffic there, said that the situation at the junction would worsen during peak hours, weekends and holidays.
“During peak hours, we find the Kengeri junction chaotic. Thousands of vehicles proceed towards Bengaluru from Ramanagara, Mandya and Mysuru. Though we can drive at a speed of 100 kmph from Mysuru, we will be forced to slow down once we reach Rajarajeshwari Medical College,” said Prakash Murugan, a motorist.
As a result, the vehicles move at a snail’s pace from near the medical college to the Kengeri junction, which is more than 2 km. Also, the road users TNIE spoke to, complained of jaywalking on the stretch between Rajarajeshwari Medical College and the Kengeri junction.
A traffic policeman said that jaywalking is rampant near the junction and said building skywalks there may solve this problem and help prevent slowing down of traffic. It is said that the traffic police have already brought this to the notice of the BBMP.
Some commuters said that KSRTC and BMTC crew parked their buses on either side of the road leading to the Kengeri Bus Terminal after dropping passengers there. This led to traffic snarls on the highway. They slammed the authorities for not considering these issues while implementing the expressway project.
“Now, the officials are finding it difficult to ease the congestion on this stretch of expressway,” they added. An official from NHAI said that there will be hundreds of hurdles such as land acquisition while planning and executing any major project. There are no projects without complaints, no matter how good they are. “We are trying to find solutions to the traffic problems in association with the state government,” the official added.