Bengaluru: Magic box' closed after 8 years

Bengaluru: A two-day trial of the Cauvery Junction underpass was enough to  have it shut down. The eight-year-old ‘magic box’, as it was called, was closed down on Monday by Bengaluru Traffic Police. The move was made to ease the traffic volume leading to Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) on Bellary Road.

The trial took place on Saturday and Sunday, to gauge the flow of traffic toward Sankey Road and KIA. BTP have now shut down the underpass permanently. The underpass  was created back in 2008, when the signal-free system was brought in as a possible solution to the traffic situation in the city.

The magic box system needed vehicles moving toward the airport to turn left near Cauvery theatre, followed by a U-turn to rejoin airport road. As the volume of traffic on airport road is increasing everyday, the bottle neck created by the U-turn resulted in long traffic jams.

“The magic box system was no longer practical. Vehicles going to KIA have to be given importance because of the high volume, as opposed to the vehicles coming from Sankey tank. There are alternate routes available for vehicle coming from Sankey tank to reach Mekhri circle or towards the city center” said a senior traffic police official.

Vehicles coming from BDA junction towards the airport, now can go directly without any interruption near Cauvery junction.