Poor maintenance makes flyover a hellish ride

BENGALURU: The city’s first and one of the busiest, the Mysore Road flyover, has become a dangerous stretch due to poor maintenance and movement of heavy vehicles. The motorway is damaged and potholes have surfaced at many places, making it accident-prone. The accident on Tuesday that claimed the lives of a couple is one of many such, say traffic police.“We have been writing to BBMP engineers to repair this stretch, but in vain. From 9am to 11am and 5pm to 9.30pm, vehicles move at crawling pace. Potholes are one of the reasons for slow-moving traffic. If a vehicle breaks down here,  it makes the situation worse,’’ says D C Ramachandriah, sub-inspector at Chickpet traffic police station.

After Tuesday’s accident, police placed barricades near the damaged portion of the flyover to  prevent further accidents. “Filling potholes is not our job, but we have been doing this. In fact, to fix the damaged portion of the road where the accident took place, we had to request the contractor of an under-construction building nearby to give us come concrete so that we could fill it,’’ rued Sidray K, a constable at Chickpet police station.According to traffic police, over the last two months, there have been at least eight serial accidents on the flyover. “At least two to three vehicles were involved in each of the accidents. They were not fatal,’’ police said.

Mahesh Chandra, who takes the flyover, said the stretch towards the Sirsi Circle end is accident-prone. “Vehicles coming from Town Hall side cannot slow down or stop suddenly due to the slope. It is  dangerous, especially for two-wheelers,’’ he said.Syed Zuberulla, a resident of JJ Nagar, said BBMP had taken up repair works on the flyover in 2013. “This  is the busiest, but a very bad road. Closing it down for repair was a nightmare for us. It was shut for three months when the road surface was removed, joints were replaced and entire stretch was relaid. It was fine for some time but potholes started surfacing again because of bad quality work and movement of heavy trucks and buses,’’ he said.
Shankar, an autorickshaw driver, said, “Potholes dot the stretch and we cannot change lanes quickly. If my auto is damaged due to potholes, will BBMP engineers bear my expenses?’’

All about the flyover

The 2.65 km flyover, also known as Sirsi Circle flyover, was constructed by Larsen and Toubro (L&T) in late 90s at a cost of `97 crore and was opened to traffic in 1998. As many as 24 finger-type expansion  joints were used, but they have been damaged over the years. The flyover was constructed using precast concrete slabs. The expansion joints are used between two slabs to absorb temperature caused by vehicle movement. L&T’s maintainance contract ended in 2001. Between 2008 and 2010, BBMP floated tenders at least four times, but there were no takers. In 2013, Sanfield India Ltd was entrusted with the task of replacing the finger-type joints at a cost of `2.65  crore.