Hebbal flyover in Blore turns a traffic bottleneck

The proposed plan to upgrade and widen the Bellary Road leading to Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) has been unable to iron out the problem created by a 100-metre-long bottleneck between Hebbal flyover and Kempapura entrance. It is estimated that the daily traffic volume at Hebbal flyover, a crucial junction en route to the BIA, will nearly double in a year. Currently, the flyover records a daily passenger car unit (PCU) of about 1.4 lakh, which is projected to cross the 2 lakh figure in a year.

The upgradation project taken up by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) between Hebbal flyover and the BIA, however, has run into a landlock of sorts at Kempapura entrance. The bottleneck is the consequence of a huge mismatch on either side of it: The Bellary Road stretch on the BIA side is a 10-lane road expressway service roads, while, on the other side, eight lanes radiate towards the city.

The situation will worsen once the upgradation work is completed: the BIA side stretch will become a 16-lane highway including an elevated six-lane corridor, but on the other side it will be a nine-lane affair with five lanes going up/down the flyover, two lanes from Tumkur Road side and two lanes towards the Outer Ring Road-KR Puram side.

The bottleneck at the junction of the two stretches is about six lanes wide. Complicating the problem is the Hebbal flyover. The upgradation envisages adding one lane to the flyover towards BIA side, while there is no compensation lane in the reverse direction.

All efforts to widen and ease the bottleneck have not gone beyond the drawing board as the stretch is locked with army land on one side and a cemetery on the other. The army is yet to agree to part with the land.