For IT employee Utsav, crossing the Panathur underbridge is a daily feat of patience, consuming an hour of his commute each way to and from the Outer Ring Road.
He is not alone in this. Another resident Ashish Thomas, who has been living in an apartment on Silver Woods Main Road for nearly two years now, claimed to have seen the ugliest of situations. “This one time, I took two and half hours to my office that’s about two kilometres away. I could have ran to and from my office ten times in that period! But walking is not an option either. I am moving out of this place next month because of this issue,” he said.
All this is due to the ongoing underbridge construction and road expansion work at Panathur.
Once completed, the railway underbridge will have two vents, each of which will be nine metres wide and five metres tall and will accommodate two lanes of traffic in each direction, according to Rail Infrastructure Development Company (Karnataka) (K-RIDE).
The railway underbridge was sanctioned in October 2020 and was being executed by the SBC Division of the South Western Railways. While they constructed the first vent to accommodate three tracks, an extension to accommodate two more tracks was carried out by K-RIDE.
The first vent was completed in April 2023 but wasn’t opened for vehicles due to no drains or non-return valves provided by the BBMP. K-RIDE temporarily raised the bed level by 0.8m to avoid water stagnation issues and opened it for traffic in June this year.
K-RIDE took up construction work of the second vent in February this year. It is likely to be completed by October.
However, a bigger issue is the S-cross and narrow approach roads to the underbridge.
An officer from the HAL airport traffic police said that since this is the only road towards Gunjur, Varthur and Panathur, there is no solution until the road is widened. “Overtaking two-wheelers cause a gridlock situation and at least one vehicle breaks down on the approach roads every day. It takes us at least 45 minutes to clear one vehicle,” she said.
Former MLA Arvind Limbavali explained that ongoing court case and land acquisition issues at the S-cross has delayed progress on the stretch but work, including drain and utility shifting works, are set to speed up soon.
No alternatives
Residents of the area also have no easier alternative to the Panathur stretch. Two-wheeler users used to risk their safety by using a mud road underpass at Croma Road which has been shut since earlier this year.
Ajay a resident of Gunjur who works at Kadubeesanahalli takes a makeshift road where railway doubling work is underway. “There is no alternative. During office hours it is not possible to cross Panathur Road. It will take me 1.5 hours if I use that” he said.