One mishap! And Whitefield loses its way

Bengaluru: Despite Whitefield being a prominent IT hub and area residents taking up sustained campaigns for smooth movement of traffic through the area, one road accident brought the entire IT corridor to its knees on Wednesday morning.

A BMTC Volvo bus rammed into a tractor from behind near the RMZ Centennial, close to Graphite India Ltd, bringing traffic on the busy stretch to a complete standstill during the morning peak hours. The police sweated for over two hours before bringing traffic under control.

The Volvo bus was stuck on one side of the road, while the badly damaged tractor blocked traffic on the other side, leaving no space for vehicles, even two-wheelers, to pass through. The only option before the traffic police was to remove the badly damaged vehicles, but with the traffic piled up on both sides, reaching a crane to the spot itself was a challenge for them.

The accident occurred between 6 am and 6.30 am, traffic started piling up from 7.30 am, and the traffic police arrived at the spot only an hour later. By the time the cops cleared the traffic around 11.30 am, vehicles had piled up for kilometers on Hoodi Main Road, Kundalahalli Main Road, Varthur and ITPL Main Roads.

Four people, including the driver of the tractor, were injured, and are being treated at Vydehi Hospital. They are said to be out of danger. The Whitefield traffic police have registered a case.

‘Whitefield needs an exclusive IT corridor’

The need of the hour is to decongest traffic and the solution is to build an exclusive IT corridor for Whitefield, say experts. It could be an elevated expressway similar to the one on Hosur Road or the Metro Rail line to reach Whitefield that could bring down traffic congestion to an extent.

“Whitefield has only one access road that is the old Airport Road which is narrow. It goes straight into Whitefield without any entry or exit roads. The major arterial road that connects this stretch is the Marathahalli Outer Ring Road which connects Sarjapur Road on one side and K.R. Puram road on the other. Kundalahalli Main Road going towards Mahadevpura and ITPL Roads too contribute to the traffic mess,” says V. Ravichandar, a civic evangelist.

“The Outer Ring Road is a four-lane road, but takes the load of a six-lane traffic with traffic on the service roads on each side. Just imagine the amount of traffic only on this outer ring road that enters the IT corridor! Technically, there are no arterial roads connecting Whitefield,” Mr Ravichandra said.

“The best solution would be a Metro line, rather than an elevated expressway, as the humongous IT crowd will switch to Metro once it’s constructed. Besides this will encourage the ITBT crowd to use public transport,” said Mr T.V. Mohandas Pai, Chairman, Manipal Global Education.

But, Mr Ravichandar pointed out, before starting the work on the Metro line alternative access roads to Whitefield should be planned, otherwise, reaching Whitefield would become a nightmare for commuters as the existing roads will shrink due to Metro construction. “The authorities did not have the foresight to solve the problem, and they are now neck deep in it. The traffic police recently turned a lot roads into one-ways, which is adding to the traffic problem,” he said.

Most affected junctions

Marathahalli, KR Puram underbridge, Hoodi, Kundalahalli, ITPL, Varthur, Hope Farm, Big Bazaar, Phoenix Mall, Vydehi Hospital and Anjaneya temple junctions were the most affected in the traffic jam.

5-6 lakh people use road daily

Anywhere between 5 and 6 lakh people move in and out of Whitefield IT zone every day. The IT belt has over 1,400 companies clustered around Marathahalli and Bellandur junctions near Sarjapura Road and Mahadevpura, ITPL and Hope Farm in Whitefield. On an average, each commuter spends at least 4 hours of travelling on choked Bengaluru roads, which is nearly two months a year! The city with a population of 10 million has 5 million vehicles, which is one vehicle for every two people.

Yelahanka is the next Whitefield

Yelahanka is the next Whitefield in the making, warned V. Ravichandar. There is an IT boom in the area and hundreds of tech companies are sprouting in and around Yelahanka. It will face the same problems as Whitefield soon, he said. Though citizen-initiated groups, like Whitefield Rising, have been working hard to address civic issues, including the traffic menace, there has been no visible relief to commuters. “We can only persuade citizens to follow traffic rules, and highlight issues faced by road users to the authorities. But it is up to the authorities to intervene and make changes,” said Mr Pravir Bagrodia, a spokesperson for Whitefield Rising. “Accidents in and around Whitefield bring traffic to a grinding halt. But we can only highlight the cause of each accident and report it to the authorities,” he said.