Will this overbridge untangle Bengaluru's Silk Board mess?

Bengaluru: If it all goes as planned, a metro-rail-cum-road overbridge will be built to ease traffic congestion on the notorious Silk Board junction.

Elaborating on the complex design that involves a double decker bridge to and from the Central Silk Board Metro Station, BMRCL Managing Director Pradeep Singh Kharola said, "The two-layer bridge, will start at Ragigudda, pass through BTM and reach Silk Board station. One metro line will go to K.R. Puram. The second stretch of metro line will turn right at Silk Board and head towards Electronics City."

The elevated road and metro line will be 8 m and 16 m, above the existing road respectively. There will be ramps, connecting the existing roads to the elevated roads.

“The elevated road coming from Ragigudda side will split into three. One will go towards KR Puram along Outer Ring Road (ORR). The second will form a loop near the beginning of the Silk Board flyover, going towards KR Puram as it can't go over the flyover,"  Kharola said. The same road will have a deviation towards Electronics City, he added.

According to BMRCL CPRO Vasanth Rao, “The benefits of this design are that it will reduce the traffic in the entire junction. Secondly, the rail cum road link is best form of space optimization.”

When Deccan Chronicle asked Kharola to elaborate on the traffic study done, he said, "We have done a traffic study looking into the Passenger Car Units (PCUs) of each and every circle, like Silk Board, Jayadeva, etc. It is a scientific design."

BMRCL officials stressed on the fact that the proposed elevated roads will be signal free corridors.

During his address Bengaluru Development Minister K.J. George said, "We will have no problem getting funds as the design is viable. For Phase 2, European Investment Bank has given Rs 3,600 crore and Asian Infrastructure Development Bank has also given Rs 3,600 crore."

The Silk Board interchange metro station is a part of two stretches - the RV Road-Bommasandra stretch under Phase 2 and the Silk Board-KR Puram line (along ORR) under Phase 2a,  Kharola explained.

‘Project may encourage use of private vehicles’
The whole point of metro rail is to decongest roads and encourage the public to ditch their private vehicles for public transport. However commenting on the proposed double decker bridge over Silk Board, Srinidhi, a member of Praja RAAG, said, "If there are roads on the same line as the Metro, which extends further beyond providing last mile connectivity, why will people use the Metro? BMRCL's purpose is to disincentive use of private vehicles, not encourage it." "An elevated road will only help improve vehicle movement. For example, for someone travelling from Basvangudi to K.R. Puram, the metro is only there from RV Road onwards. Instead of parking the vehicle in that station, that person will prefer to drive all the way." When asked about this contradiction, Bengaluru Development Minister said, "We want to bring about multi-nodal transport. It is a person's choice to use the road or the metro."

36 months wait
The approval of the design by the State Government will take a month, after which construction is expected to take 36 months. This is a joint project of the BDA and BMRCL.

Rs 900 cr cost
While the entire of Phase 2 would cost Rs 24,000 crore, the Silk Board section will cost 900 crore, of which Rs 100 crore will be paid by BDA and Rs 800 crore by BMRCL.