Signal-free ‘Interchange with Flyover, Rotary and Underpass’ to be built at busy Columbia Asia Junction on Mysuru-Bengaluru Highway

Mysore/Mysuru: The Mysuru-Bengaluru Road and Outer Ring Road Junction near Columbia Asia Hospital will undergo a sea change with a new ‘Interchange with Flyover, Rotary and Underpass’ project that will be taken up as part of the Mysuru-Bengaluru Highway that is being upgraded to a 10-lane Highway. 

The Columbia Asia Junction is one of the major traffic bottlenecks in city and it is a nightmare to travel on this stretch especially during peak hours where four crucial roads meet with trucks, cars and two-wheelers jostling for space. 

Once the new project is implemented, it will be a signal-free stretch with seamless flow of traffic. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will take up  the project. 

Realising the bottleneck issue and public demands for a system for smooth flow of traffic, the NHAI had earlier proposed ‘Full Cloverleaf Interchange’, ‘Interchange with Flyover, Rotary and Underpass’ and ‘Half Cloverleaf Interchange with Rotary Junction’. The proposal for Clover-Shaped Interchange was sent to Centre on Feb. 27, 2019. 

Clover-Shaped Interchange or Clover Leaf Interchange, in transportation engineering, is a junction that uses a grade separation technique or ramping mechanism consisting of one or more ramps to allow the traffic flow from one or more Highways through the junction even without actually crossing it or without disturbing the movement of other traffic streams.

An example of a Clover Leaf Interchange can be found on the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC). It is a four to six-lane private tolled expressway connecting the two cities. The BMIC Clover Leaf Interchange intersects the BMIC Mysore Road and BMIC Peripheral Ring Road. 

However, the cost of ‘Full Cloverleaf Interchange’ amounts to Rs. 483.90 crore and the idea had to be dropped due to the cost factor. The option of ‘Half Cloverleaf Interchange with Rotary Junction’ too had to be dropped as it would cost Rs. 347.50 crore. 

In order to cut costs, the NHAI chose the more economic ‘Interchange with Flyover, Rotary and Underpass’ that costs Rs. 170.02 crore. This includes preconstruction activities like land acquisition, utility shifting and R&R cost (renovation or refurbishment works), civil work construction cost including GST. 

It may be mentioned here that the city’s first flyover has already been constructed and is operational at Hinkal on the Mysuru-Madikeri Road.