Techie has solution for Bengaluru's Silk Board gridlock

BENGALURU: After almost two years of travelling to Bellandur for work, this techie changed his workplace to Koramangala. Reason: He wanted to steer clear of traffic snarls at the infamous Silk Board Junction. Karan Singh B, a techie from JP Nagar, 7th Phase, says he has now drawn up a plan to decongest Silk Board junction by at least 50%.
"It took me two hours to reach office and more than two hours to get back home.And when it rains, the Silk Board junction becomes the toughest signal to cross. Some of my friends have taken more than four-five hours to reach home from Bellandur. When I changed my job, one of the reasons for moving out was to avoid the Silk Board signal," he says.
But Karan, 35, did not stop at that. After several months of working on how he could help, he drew up a plan which would throw open two-ways on all four approach roads at the signal. However, when TOI spoke to traffic police about the plan's feasibility, they said U-turns will not work to decongest the signal.
"We have done several experiments, permutations and combinations and simulations to ease traffic at the Silk Board junction, but everything has failed. We tried to work on suggestions sent by citizens too, but nothing worked. Most send suggestions which are car-centric that will help cars and bikes move easily, but not buses, trucks and other types of vehicles which also have the right to use the road," said R Hitendra, additional commissioner of police (traffic).
He explained that a U-turn would only make things worse because buses need a lot of turning radius and hence their speed would reduce considerably, resulting in a traffic pileup on all sides. "There are no signals for 10km on either side of Outer Ring Road, which means a lot of vehicles flow into the junction at the same time and get stuck here. Every junction has its own capacity to handle a specific number of vehicles and it is a multi-directional approach which has to be handled carefully," Hitendra told TOI.
Meanwhile, traffic cops have given a NoC to BDA and BMRC to construct an integrated flyover and Metro line through Silk Board junction. BMRC has notified land for acquisition for the RV Road-Bommasandra corridor, which includes this integrated flyover from ahead of Jayadeva Hospital to Silk Board. Hitendra says the Metro will reduce the number of vehicles on road and decongest the signal to a considerable extent.