Traffic police erect barricades to tame festive crowd near Phoenix Mall of Asia

Bengaluru: In a bid to reduce the traffic congestion on the Ballari Road service road leading up to the Phoenix Mall of Asia near Kodigehalli in northern Bengaluru, traffic police have introduced minor changes at the Kodigehalli junction. 

Since 11 am on Monday, traffic police positioned barricades and put up signboards to segregate the influx of traffic at the Kodigehalli signal. Vehicles going towards the mall and residential areas around the mall were directed to continue on the service road while vehicles bound towards the airport, Doddaballapur and other areas were asked to take the main road. 

“We implemented this on Monday morning after seeing the traffic chaos on the road leading up to the mall on the weekend. We want to keep this system in place until at least New Year’s Eve,” said a senior traffic police officer in charge of the area. 

Besides the sheer increase in the number of vehicles on the road through the weekend, traffic police sources noted that the lack of parking space in the mall premises, roadside parking of auto-rickshaws, taxis, and personal vehicles, and the crisscrossing of vehicles to get to the main road from the service road, and vice versa, were some of the reasons why traffic came to a standstill on the service road for hours on Saturday and Sunday. 

Traffic in the CBD 

Slow-moving traffic was also reported on and around MG Road, Brigade Road, Residency Road and other roads connected to them due to the high number of vehicles and pedestrians on the road. Similar slow-moving traffic could be seen on stretches of Tumakuru Road near the Nagasandra and Goraguntepalya metro stations in the northwest, and outside the Phoenix Marketcity on ITPL Main Road in the east. 

Metro station crowds

The festive crowd hit the metro stations in the CBD, especially at the MG Road metro station, where unusually long queues of up to 35 metres lined up before the security check gates. Trains ran crowded even at 9.30 pm. Surprisingly, the Majestic metro station didn’t see an unusually high commuter crowd on
Monday night.