As cacophony flies over, it's good old days here

<div class="section0"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-size:="">BANGALORE: Hennur Main Road was hell a year ago. Today, localities around the road have restored serenity with the completion of the flyover at Lingarajpuram.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">Life under the flyover almost resembles life on the Hennur Main Road many years ago — when a few residential localities existed along the road once you left Lingarajpuram.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">The Hennur Main Road, under the flyover, is now more like a road in any small town in India — dotted with hotels, bakeries, provisions stores, two-wheeler mechanics and Bangalore''s trademark wine stores.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">The teeming traffic that flowed on this road is now reduced to a trickle and restricted to vehicles bound for Lingarajpuram and St Thomas Town.The heavy traffic has shifted overhead.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">Since the flyover was completed a year ago, parents no longer worry about sending their children out to the road to cycle or buy groceries. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">Fears of being knocked down by a marauding bus or truck have also diminished.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">The improved situation on the road has also improved the lives of disabled persons using the road to access the training centre of the Association of People with Disability in St Thomas Town.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">"Peace and quiet have returned to our locality with the creation of the flyover. The constant noise of traffic that surrounded us has almost gone; now, there is just the occasional vehicle moving around," says D. Arun, a resident of St Thomas Town.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">While the traffic situation on Hennur Road was bad before the construction of the flyover, it was the residential areas like St Thomas Town that bore the brunt of the traffic pressure when the construction was in progress.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">Vehicles flowing towards the Ring Road and in the opposite direction towards Bangalore were diverted through the narrow lanes of Lingarajpuram and St Thomas Town and surrounding areas.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">While quiet has returned to the localities around the Hennur Main Road, a new reason for worry has cropped up. Railway authorities who had opened up an access way to Hutchins Road during the construction of the flyover — allowing vehicles to avoid Hennur Road — have now blocked these access ways.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">"Now people are almost being compelled to use the flyover to access localities around the railway line at Lingarajpuram. The direct access through Hutchins Road would have reduced the pressure on the flyover," says Arif Khan of Lingarajpuram.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">For those living around Hutchins Road, however, the closure of the access way between St Thomas Town has been a restoration of peace in their own area — which had been disrupted at the time of the construction of the flyover.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">"For us, the opening of the flyover has meant the end to the traffic flow and noise in our residential area, especially after the closure of the access way over the railway line at Hutchins Road," says Anup S., a resident of Hutchins Road.</span></div> </div>