Mysore today-
Mysore, Karnataka's second city, is known for its built heritage, lakes and avenue trees. It is a growing city with a vehicle population of about 8 lakhs, increasing at the rate of about 35,000 vehicles being added to the city roads every year. (That's about 100 vehicles every day!). The rapidly growing problem of traffic congestion within Mysore City is causing concern to Mysore's civic authorities because citizens are raising the connected issues of road accidents affecting pedestrians and vehicles, vehicle exhaust pollution, vehicle noise, and shortage of road space and parking space. Road widening to facilitate motor vehicle movement results in reduction of foot-path width, further increasing risk for pedestrians. It also involves removal of mature avenue shade trees, reducing their natural air-cleaning capacity.
Mysore has roads leading into and out of the city including Bannur Road, Bangalore Road, KRS Road, Hunsur Road, Bogadi Road, Manandavadi Road, Nanjangud Road, and T.Narasipura Road. Mysore's 6-lane-width Outer Ring Road (ORR) was designed for the purpose of providing a by-pass route for long-distance highway traffic. However, the ORR presently only connects Bannur Road, Bangalore Road, KRS Road, Hunsur Road, Bogadi Road, Manandavadi Road and Nanjangud Road. The balance one-fourth segment of the ORR connecting Nanjangud Road with T.Narasipura Road and Bannur Road by going around Chamundi Hill, remains to be executed, but MUDA has the construction of this segment in hand.
Connecting cities
According to international and national best practices, highways connecting cities should not pass through the cities, but should provide easy access to and from the cities. This is necessary so that heavy vehicles and through-traffic on the highway do not contribute to existing and rapidly growing traffic congestion in the city, and also do not suffer unnecessary and avoidable delay. Therefore, cities need to be provided a by-pass route for long-distance highway traffic in the best interest of both the city and the highway traffic. In Karnataka State itself the example of by-passes for Bhadravati, Shimoga and Dharwad can be cited.
However, National Highway NH-212, which connects Kozhikode (Kerala) with Kollegal (Karnataka) has been designed to pass through a part of Mysore City, and the Union Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MORTH), has this project in hand. This 5-km stretch starts from Nanjangud Road near its junction with JLB Road, skirts the Race Course and the Race Club, goes along Lalitha Mahal Road and meets with the T.Narasipura Road. If this is constructed, it will bring heavy highway traffic into Mysore City, and seriously increase pedestrian and vehicle accident risk. It is pertinent to note that a December 2013 issue of an engineering journal “National Highways”, states that 78% road accidents are due to driver's fault and 70% occur on national highways! This road will also worsen air pollution and noise, and increase traffic density within the City. Besides the above disadvantages, this alignment is environmentally unsound as it involves felling of 193 mature avenue trees on Lalitha Mahal Road, thereby seriously harming Mysore's environment. The alignment of NH-212 passing through Mysore City is against all best highway engineering practices and will permanently, adversely affect Mysore City and its inhabitants.
It is difficult to understand the logic of the brilliant highway engineers who worked up this plan in contravention of all sensible planning. It is also difficult to understand the silence of Mysore's civic bodies, namely MCC and MUDA, when all that they needed to do is to tell the Union Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MORTH) that Mysore already has a ring road that connects Mysore to the highways without having highway through-traffic entering Mysore, and that work on the balance portion has already commenced, making NH-212 entering Mysore unnecessary. This balance portion of ORR will carry the highway through-traffic and save about Rs.30 crores required to widen 5-km of Mysore's roads to national highway specifications.
Alert citizens of Mysore city have brought this anomalous planning to light, and have approached the Union Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MORTH) to drop the 5-km stretch of NH-212 within the city, and use the ORR to connect Nanjangud Road with T.Narasipura Road for highway traffic. The ORR work that MUDA has presently in hand is the urgent by-pass road surgery that will relieve Mysore's road hypertension.
Dr S G Vombatkere, MGP