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Only airport traffic matters in Bangalore? So it seems

In pursuit of smoothening traffic to the airport, the traffic police, it seems, have turned a blind eye to the needs of everyone else.

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In pursuit of smoothening traffic to the airport, the traffic police, it seems, have turned a blind eye to the needs of everyone else.

Their latest ‘measure to ease things’ on Bellary Road or the International Airport Road makes a mockery of all the talk about decongesting the city. The removal of the U-turn that was available just before the Guttahalli overpass to vehicles coming from Cauvery Junction and heading to Sankey Road has put the drivers on a circuitous route. More specifically, it has created nearly a 2-km-long detour.

“Earlier, there was a convenient U-turn for everyone moving from Cauvery to Sankey Road. But now, they have to turn left into Palace Cross Road, take the U-turn at the slope there, come back to Guttahalli underpass, go under it, get into Guttahalli and then move towards Bellary Road. During peak hours, it’s a maddening driving on these roads,” says Dr Rajan B, a resident of Sankey Road.

The other alternative—take a right on Mehkri Circle, get on to CV Raman Road, turn left after CV Raman institute to enter the bylanes of RMV extension and meet Sankey Road at Bhashyam Circle—is no less tedious. In this case, the pressure on narrow lanes of the residential area and on Bhashyam Circle junction is high, too.

The third option is to go all the way to Windsor Manor junction, go around the circle and return to Cauvery Junction. That means driving a kilometre more during peak hours that could easily translate into several minutes lost, says R Srinivasan, the secretary of the Chakravarthy and Chandavarkar Layout residents' welfare association.

The shift of the U-turn from Airport Road to Palace Cross Road creates a huge pile up of vehicles here. During peak hours, it takes Srinivasan over 15-20 minutes just to take a right turn into the 2nd Main road where he lives.

“When the policemen are not watching, even buses take this route. As the radius is not adequate, they have to go back and forth to manoeuvre, inconveniencing all those passing through this way,” he says.

The route has been changed around without so much as a thought on how it would affect those entering Vyalikaval, Malleswaram, Lower Palace Orchards, Guttahalli.

“A simple U-turn is now a circuitous diversion. Why? The ordinary citizens moving on Bellary Road just don’t exist, only the airport traffic matters,” residents say.

On the other side of Mehkri Circle, residents of RT Nagar, Ganganagar, Sultanpalya, Sanjaynagar are complaining, too.

They, too, have been denied a simple U-turn and are being forced to travel all over to get into their neighbourhoods from Airport Road. Vehicles moving from the city towards these areas can no longer take a right as they earlier did. Instead, they are forced to use the narrow Sanjaynagar overpass to make a U-turn and get back on to the other side of the Airport Road.

The bottlenecks are plenty; also the point where traffic from Sanjaynagar meets Airport Road presents a challenge to drivers. During rush hour, this only exacerbates. 

When the city is talking about traffic management and at a time when expensive fuel is marring lifestyles, the traffic police’s decisions are only making matters worse. Explanations and excuses that they are acting on the orders of the higher-ups just don’t cut it for residents who are at the receiving end of such whimsical decisions.

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