Bengaluru: For the last three months, thousands of motorists and commuters travelling from Hebbal to Tin Factory have been spending a significant chunk of time stuck in the traffic gridlock in Kalyan Nagar.The already crowded part of Outer Ring Road (ORR) now has its space reduced due to the construction of the Airport Metro line. While travelling from Tin Factory towards Hebbal, commuters say, the left-side service road below the Kalyan Nagar flyover has been closed and is currently being used as a parking area for Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) construction goods vehicles. A significant part of the service road is being used by BMRCL to station its construction equipment.However, on navigation platforms like Google Maps, the road continues to be shown open.When TOI visited the stretch, a load truck was stationed on the service road, reducing the little available space due to the barricades. Frustrated with the traffic at a standstill, a cab driver and several other commuters stepped out of their vehicles and started walking ahead to evaluate the congestion and the length of the bottleneck.Vishwas Setlur, a resident of Kalyan Nagar, said there are a lot of deviations and most of the traffic goes through service roads as the main road is blocked for Metro work. “The quality of service roads has gone for a toss. I live in an apartment adjacent to the service road and I can hear heavy vehicles hitting the potholes. The Metro construction vehicles parked here reduce the available space at these temporary exit and entry points and have made the situation worse,” he added.According to Shree Ram Bishnoi, a traffic warden volunteering with traffic police, the issue exists in both directions between Hebbal and Tin Factory. In an appeal to traffic police on “X”, Bishnoi stated that vehicles enter the service road only to discover that it is blocked. “They are then forced to return to the main carriageway, take a U-turn, or in many cases drive on the wrong side to access the service road, creating unnecessary congestion and increasing the risk of accidents,” he wrote.Bishnoi told TOI the situation has been the same for around four months. “Because the service road is showing as open on maps, whichever vehicle is coming to Hebbal from Tin Factory will have to pass through the main road and take a U-turn only at Hennur Cross.”BMRCL, however, argued that the construction vehicles stationed on the service road are not a regular occurrence. “It was an isolated incident. We already checked as to why vehicles were stationed along the service road. All the closures and diversions are implemented in coordination with the traffic police,” a senior BMRCL official said.An inspector from Banaswadi traffic police station maintained that no complaint on the issue has been reported till now.
