BENGALURU: Running Monorail from Central College Pavillion Ground to the Kempegowda International Airport will be more feasible than spending a whopping Rs 2,600 crore on the controversial steel flyover stretching for about 7 km, said traffic expert M.N. Sreehari.
He told Deccan Chronicle that Monorail can be executed at Rs 190 crore per kilometre and it serves better than the steel flyover. The government need not cut any trees for the project, he said.
“Terminal station can be planned at Central College Grounds and the beauty of Monorail is that it can carry 15-20,000 passengers in one direction per hour. No amount of flyovers and metal bridges will help ease congestion on the busy airport road,” he said.
Flyovers are only temporary arrangements to solve the problem and they shift the problem from one place to another. World over, the flyovers have become redundant. Any given day, Monorail or commuter train is better than having an ugly metal flyover, he said.
Meanwhile, sources said that political class and vested interests were pushing the steel flyover project. Though the entire city has stood up against the project, the state government and BDA are hell bent on executing it for reasons best known to them, they said.
For instance, the Hebbal flyover which was built to provide the much needed succour to the traffic snarls has become one of the most-congested flyovers. The state government should focus on more on multi-modal mass rapid transportation systems, they said.
If the government is willing to spend Rs 2,600 crore for a little over 7 km, spending Rs 6,460 to link the airport from the city centre is more valid and helpful, they said.
Govt can use existing rail network
The state government can also make use of the existing South Western Railway (SWR) network to link the airport through Yelahanka and Erthiganahalli. Trains can be allowed to run at an interval of one hour carrying a large number of people. An arrangement can be worked out to ferry people from the railway station to the airport. All that the state government has to spend is less than '40 crore, said traffic experts.
No eco-impact study yet
With just ten days left for the next of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) over the controversial steel flyover project, the BDA is yet to reveal whether it will be able to submit an environmental impact assessment (EIA) and if so which agency will be entrusted to do the job.
Conducting an EIA is one of the conditions NGT has set and in no way the project can budge without carrying it out. Mr P.N. Nayak, BDA engineer member, said that work cannot be taken up until the legal tangles are cleared. The BDA legal wing will decide on the future course on the steel flyover, he said.
