Church Street awaits redemption as endless traffic delays work

BENGALURU: Continuous vehicular traffic on Church Street is obstructing the road's ongoing upgrade. Well, that is the reason the authorities are offering for the slow pace of work. Clearly , the project, which started in February , will overshoot the six-month deadline set during its inauguration.

Although the traffic police closed the road in February, the 81 commercial establishments, whose businesses will be affected if the road is shut down, appear to have prevailed. Presently, all the establishments in this hotspot for food, pubs and entertainment remain open despite the din and dust.

Church Street Occupants Association president Deepak Batavia said the entry of vehicles would be restricted once the road work is taken up.

“We have suggested to the BBMP to divide the work into two parts so that the level of inconvenience can be brought down. Traffic would be barred once the contractor takes up the road work,“ he said.

People living on Church Street -with little or no alternative space to park their vehicles -also want the road open for traffic. There are, however, only three residential apartments on this road.

“We were not able to use our vehicle for at least seven days as the approach road was blocked. There is no place nearby to park our cars,“ Anuradha Sarin, a resident of Daffodils Apartment on Church Street, said.

The 700-metre street is being upgraded in line with TenderSURE guidelines at a cost of `9 crore.Currently, the underground lines and cables are being shifted to one side of the street from the Brigade Road cross to the Rest House Crescent Road junction. Work on the other half of the road from the Rest House Crescent junction up to St Mark's Road is yet to begin.

Pedestrians have been at the receiving end as work on upgrading MG Road's footpath is also being carried out simultaneously . “If vehicles are not allowed on Church Street, the dust levels will come down and the work will also be faster,“ Dhananjay Gowda, a pedestrian, said. He hoped that the street would be ready before the monsoon.

Safiq Razak of Kudroli Builders and Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, the agency implementing the project, said the builder is being forced to deploy heavy machinery such as excavators only in the night as there are no vehicles at that time.

While Abhishek Goyal, DCP (Traffic), Bengaluru East, blamed the BBMP for allowing vehicles on Church Street, Mayor G Padmavathi said she would ask officials to stop traffic on the street in the next few days.