A day after the Bengaluru bandh, many parts of the city, the Outer Ring Road (ORR) in particular, ground to a halt on Wednesday as traffic jams stretched several kilometres.
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The infrastructure shortfalls along the Outer Ring Road (ORR), including the lack of a parallel road and the multiple high-density junctions and U-turns, were major contributors to the traffic nightmare that commuters experienced on Wednesday.
Between 3 pm and 7 pm on Wednesday, traffic came to a screeching halt as nearly two times the regular traffic volume was seen on the ORR. Many commuters reported reaching their destinations much after the desired time.
Kuldeep Kumar Jain, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic, East), explained that heavy congestion points in his jurisdiction lie at junctions at Devarabeesanahalli, Kadubeesanahalli, Marathahalli, Karthik Nagar.
“Traffic from many directions converges at some of these points, causing congestion. Except for Marathahalli, where a U-turn is not allowed, vehicles stop to take a U-turn in other junctions, which can slow down traffic,” he said.
As a result, roads leading to the ORR also experience congestion, as they aren’t designed to handle the vehicle load. Explaining this further, he noted that the Panathur road and railway under-bridge needed to be extended to accommodate all the vehicles passing through it.
Shiva Prakash Devaraju, DCP Traffic, South, highlighted that the Iblur and Bellandur junctions on the ORR that fall in the south division’s limits see a heavy volume of traffic from and towards HSR Layout, Sarjapur Road, and Marathahalli. As a result, congestion spills over to roads around it, including the Bellandur Lake Road.
The ongoing metro construction on ORR has eaten away most of the existing road space, cutting accessible space down to a single lane for two-way traffic, which worsens the situation, he added.
M N Anucheth, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), noted that the failing infrastructure and planning were major reasons for the chaos. “The main issue is that there is no parallel road to the ORR, which means that people on all arterial roads leading to the ORR have no choice but to go through the stretch. There are no alternatives to these arterial roads either,” he told DH.
The issue was compounded as at least 90 per cent of the workforce of over six lakh employees returned to their offices on Wednesday. “Because companies don’t follow staggered exit timings, they must have all exited around the same time,” he said.
The employees in tech parks of the ORR use about 3.38 lakh personal four-wheelers to get to and from work. The usual vehicle count on Wednesdays is 1.5 to 2 lakh. That went up to 3.59 lakh as of 7.30 pm on September 27.