Road to BIAL airport
Today I drove all the way to the BIAL airport in Devanahalli. It took me exactly 50 minutes to reach there from Banaswadi. I took the Outer Ring Road from Banaswadi until the Hebbal flyover and then a right turn there to get onto the highway. From Hebbal, it took me exactly 22 minutes to reach the Trumpet Interchange on the highway, from where the airport is 5 mins away.
Some notes:
1. The highway is wonderful after Kodigehalli cross. You can easily drive at an average speed of 70 kmph until the Trumpet Interchange.
2. But there are numerous villages on the way and there are no barricades to prevent people from walking on the road. If you have a fast car, you have to ensure that you have very good brakes. You never know when that old man will get in your way all of a sudden. These villages check your speed too. And thats the reason I say that the average speed could be 70 kmph. It can easily go up if the authorities take note of it.
3. Another thing that checks your speed is the ubiquitous road hump. I found plenty of them and most of them were unmarked. There were neither warning signposts nor the white painting on them. Just imagine that you are cruising at a speed over 100 kmph (which is possible on lots of stretches) and suddenly you find a very steep road hump in front of you. Nothing should shock you more. So, it means you have to concentrate on the road or else you can find yourself jumping up and down so badly in your vehicle that you will do some damage to your spine.
4. The Traffic signal point on the highway at the Yelahanka-Kogilu junction consumes a lot of time. Probably a underpass here will solve the problem.
5. The road between the Hebbal flyover and Jakkur, near Sahakaranagar, is where you lose a lot of time. BMTC buses stop in the middle of the road here. Bus bays here should solve the problem.
I think the road between Hebbal and the airport is not a problem at the moment. The problem is getting to Hebbal from say Banashankari. A person who has to get to the airport from Banashankari or Jayanagar has to negotiate traffic in South End Circle, JC road, Hudson Circle, Queen’s statue, GPO junction, Chalukya junction and CBI juction to reach Hebbal.(Assuming that the underpasses at cauvery junction and BDA junction solve the problems there) This journey will surely take more than 120 minutes in peak hour traffic. And add to this another 30 minutes for the journey from Hebbal to Airport. What do you get? 150 minutes to get to the airport!! And if the destination is Chennai which is a 40 minute flight, nothing can get more frustrating than getting to the BIAL airport.
The airport begins functioning in less than 4 months. And we still seem to have great problems at hand.
We will have to wait till the airport comes up to see how much traffic will be there between Hebbal and Devanahalli. Until then, there is no point comparing with the traffic now, because that will be several orders of magnitude higher.
Though I do agree, in-city traffic is going to be tougher to navigate than the NH7.
It also depends on the time of the day, day of the week etc….
Also, as kpowerinfinity pointed out, it would be interesting to see what it takes from South Bangalore to reach BIAL.
On the same topic, here is an interesting article from Deccan Herald “55-km drive from Whitefield to Devanahalli takes 3 hours!”
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jan202008/city2008012047633.asp
On one side, it is great to see a international airport coming up…however, it would be nicer to see better infrastructure to reach there and back to the city.
Hi Thejas,
Nice informative post. I get a feeling that anybody who has to catch a flight will give himself a good 3 – 4 hours time to reach the airport. Everybody’s thinking here will be better to be early & wait at the airport than take a chance & try to reach just in time.
Taking three hours to the Airport will be quite taxing…Thats the worst part…May be they can come up with some more one-ways and stuff to divert the traffic [and again create a mess in some other area]…As for the roads its better that the Authorities consider fencing the entire road as we can save some more time having to watch out for cattles and the zombies…Also they should consider marking up the speed breakers as it may cause some major concern for motorcyclists using that stretch…
interesting post! i read a while ago that it took 4 hours for someone from electronic city during peak traffic and i shudder to think of what frequent flyers are in for.
my other worry is what autos / cabs are going to charge. it might turn out to be a most expensive ride to the airport. i have heard about airport buses but i am not sure if it’s happening on time for the opening.
the trumpet exchange is far from ready too.
and speed bumps – i am going to write a post about it actually!