Since the Past days days each one in the city is very euphoric and ones who rarely take the bridge for commute also have been very vocal.
The Railway over Bridge at Gogte circle is a connection between the north and south parts of this old city. The bridge was built in 1904 sighting that having a Level crossing so near to the Station would not be secure seeing the growth of the city in the years to come.
Today one can see citizens divided on the timing on which the work on the new RoB must start. Each one has their own rationale behind their stand.
A few want the work on the RoB to commence immediately and a few want it to be deferred until the RoB at Old Dharwad road is completed.
The administration as well is playing the wait and watch game. The Railways and its contractor are ready to demolish the said 113 year Strong bridge to make way for a new 4 laned RoB.
But it cant go ahead until the District administration gives NOC.
Postponing the the Construction of this Railway 4 LANE bridge by about 6 months is very saddening.
RoB work must be started only when the Old Dharwad Road RoB is opened for public.
Such messages are doing rounds on social media and each one is forwarding the same by adding their own intelligent inputs.
The time allocated for the completion for the RoB is 18 months and our learned citizens were heard saying it should be completed in 10 months. Well the British took about 2-3 years to build this one which had a 100 year guarantee and if the work scheduled for 18 months is done in 10 months only the Lord can save us some catastrophe. Government’s work is Gods work, so who will mess with the god.
Each one today especially the ones on the Southern part who have to take the Congress road and long route are helpless, vociferation about this but in a mild tone say once this is done it will be so helpful for us.
After the first day of jams, the people too have got into the sleeve the new one ways and round abouts but each time the train passes by and one has to wait for it, they pray let the RoB be constructed soon.
Politics has not yet completely taken over the issue, but each one have their own apprehensions and these apprehensions have got us divided to some extent.
Still with no clarity if the work would commence soon on the Gogte RoB, or will it be started after the Old Dharwad road RoB, only time can tell.
ROB demolition, as the afety concern no compromise, exisizting ROB to be demolished & construction work should start immediately. I think People have not experienced with the Mumbai & Bangalore traffic, with the heavy traffic many major road development works are going in this thick population city. Government should not listen to so called Belagavkars. Once work starts every body will get adjusted.
There are two aspects to this issue. One, the alarming chaos that the traffic is today because of the closing of the old railway over bridge. We should all thank the authorities for having less than even minimal sense of foresight or planning. They should have started these one at a time…even two at the extreme ends would have been alright. And more important is they should have started it long back..atleast 5 years back. Now they have a situation that they cannot afford to close even one connection(referring to 3rd gate, 2nd gate, etc upto old pb road.) over extended periods without adding hugely to the chaos
Second aspect is the closure of the old bridge. This needs to be urgently closed and pulled down before any incident takes place. All the citizens saying that this closure should be postponed will be the first ones to blame the authorities if some unfortunate incident occurs (worst case collapse of the bridge causing some unfortunate losses of lives).
As much as I am against the pathetic attitude or irresponsibility of the authorities and strongly condemn their lack of even common sense towards this issue, I am still a staunch supporter of closure of the old bridge with immediate effect.
Well now we do not have much choice but to suffer due to the lazy laid-back authorities! Can only pray that this does not get toooooo stretched.
Adding to the article : One should not say that the estimated 18 months time which few say can be completed in shorter period will only lead to bad quality. Trust me (And this I am saying this with full awareness of the technologies available at hand in the recent times not just in developed countries but in our country) its completely untrue. It certainly can be completed much before that 18 month estimated period..atleast 20-25% lesser time if done sincerely with harnessing the correct technology available. Also remember that just longer time frame does not mean better quality. We have to be proud of some of the contractors who could stretch the time to twice or even thrice of the estimated time (I sympathize with some who are harassed by authorities in release of funds which sometimes leads to the delays) but still maintain the quality level of less than half of the desired level.
If NOC was not taken why have they blocked the road. Once the road is blocked not a single day to be wasted. They have blocked the road and now wandering what to do. I really wonder who all do such wonderful things.
The problem with us is we comment without having any expertise.Bridge needs to be demolished and New one built at proper pace.Citizens need to show patience at all levels even traffic will be streamlined if we show Lane discipline.Blaming authorities for everything wrong is absolutely rubbish.
This is the problem of entire nation, it has been already by said by British govt that bridge is no more safe couple of years ago. But people will wait for some incident to happen, now anyhow it is re-opened, no use of closing it in advance and constructing a new one. Leave it to city’s fate.