An under-construction underpass near Kaadubeesanahalli junction on Outer Ring Road (ORR) caved in a portion of road on Wednesday, Apr 11, resulting in huge traffic jam on outer ring Road for hours.
Though there were no injuries sustained by anybody, the vehicular movement on the road beside the underpass was stopped.
Sudden entry of cars and motorcycles from the barred first part of the under construction underpass. Pic: Abhishek Angad
Earlier, traffic was not hit because a narrow passage beside the under-construction site was open for traffic in addition to the already functioning two-way underpass on the other side. Soon, after the incident, vehicles were not allowed to move on the narrow passage and the whole traffic shifted to the two-way functioning underpass.
Traffic jam continued till late in the night. There is no clear indication when the situation will get back to normal. L Nagesh- Traffic Police Inspector- Airport Police Station showed his inability and said, "We are standing since morning to ease the traffic. Until and unless BDA gets this thing resolved we won’t be able to do much. As of now traffic will be slow moving."
But the underpass will be completed only by July this year, according to BDA PRO- K Puttaswamy.
Outer Ring Road Companies Association (ORRCA) with its team was also present to help. Vishwanath Seetharam, General Secretary-ORRCA says, "We had a discussion with the BDA and Traffic team and a meeting was convened between them to sort out the issue."
Also, during the night time there are no police-personnel present to control the traffic. It seems one of the commuters removed the barricade of the narrow passage-way resulting in huge inflow of vehicles and traffic jam for sometime.
According to ORRCA, the functioning two-way underpass which has three lanes will ease out the traffic. Two way from Marathahalli towards Agara and one way from Agara towards Marathahalli. Also HTV buses will not be allowed on to the top of the underpass.The service road adjacent to new horizon is also levelled -up for movement of vehicles.
Even though temporary solutions are reached the road users will be put to hardship for some more time. The situation on ORR has spread the traffic jam to old Airport road and Old Madras Road, since they are the alternative roads to reach ITPL. ⊕
No respite for people working along ORR. We suffered many years through the Bellandur and the Sarjapur road flyover construction and just when we thought things were looking up, we have this. We Bangaloreans are a cursed lot!