[binand]

Originally Posted by binand

I'm going today, hoping to start before 3 PM and take Sarjapur-Hosur route (BETL is risky I guess).

I did start at 3 and went via Sarjapur Road. But near Sarjapur town Google was showing a red streak on NH 207 near Hosur and a 35 minute delay, so took the Confident Antlia route to Attibele. Which was generally OK, I was beyond Hosur within an hour of starting from home and was at Krishnagiri by 5.

Beyond Krishnagiri it progressively deteriorated. Omalur-Salem for example could have given a scare to our KR Pura-Marathahalli. Horrible traffic throughout, mostly I guess people going to Kerala for Christmas. I just crossed Pampampallam toll a full 7.5 hours after starting from Bangalore.

[pgrcrazy]

Hey guys, I am leaving to Thiruvalla tomorrow from Chennai. Planning to take the fastest possible route and it seems to be the chennai-trichy-dindugal-theni-kumily-thiruvalla route. Can anyone shed some light on the road conditions along this route.



I am planning to start around 1am from chennai and hoping to reach thiruvalla by 3PM at the earliest.

[silversteed]

I started from near E-City at around 4:30, and reached Palakkad (Chandranagar junction) by 11:30, with almost an hour long dinner break at Vaiguntam. Attibele and Thoppur tollbooths were slow but not as bad as I expected. Krishnagiri was a breeze However, traffic was thick till Salem. The new flyovers at Salem definitely helped. Omalur was a bit congested - took me about 10minutes despite having a FASTag, but subsequent tollbooths weren't crowded at all . Avoided Coimbatore bypass and went through the city. Didn't save a lot of time, because some traffic signals were active and the unruly two-wheeler traffic ensured that I was more or less at city speeds till I passed Athupalam. However I'm glad that I avoided the mess on the bypass.

A lot many close shaves once it became dark, mostly caused by possibly inexperienced drivers - with prominent L boards. No indication, cutting lanes without looking for traffic, braking abruptly just by seeing a dog at a distance, tailgating with high beams on, and the list goes on.

[binand]

Originally Posted by silversteed

Avoided Coimbatore bypass and went through the city. Didn't save a lot of time.

Oh I'm certain it did. I spent between 10 and 15 minutes at each of the first four toll booths on the bypass. Including a fuel stop at the Essar pump on the bypass, it took me 1.5 hours nearly to go end to end. If it were a bit later I'd have gone into the city gladly.

[naveen.raju]

Drove from Cochin to Bangalore today. Since many of you guys are driving down to Kerala, I thought I would give an heads up.

Quick stats:
1) Traffic towards Blore was low but had huge number of trucks.
2) Passed TCR toll at around 4.30am and the queue towards Cochin was long even during the wee hours.
Kuthiran is all good except for the slow traffic.
3) Coimbatore bypass is a joke. Easily lost good time here. Like excepted, traffic towards Kerala was huge. Scanning the code each time takes a lot of time.
4) From Dharmapuri, all tolls had long queues and in some tolls they even let KL side traffic pass through the wrong side of the toll to speed things up. Except for couple of tolls, traffic towards Blore was smooth.
5) Elevated flyover was also smooth for vehicles towards Blore but bad for the other side. Pictures here:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/stree...ml#post4516557 (Rants on Bangalore's traffic situation)

[bejoy]

Originally Posted by silversteed

I started from near E-City at around 4:30, and reached Palakkad (Chandranagar junction) by 11:30,

I too started almost same time and same route and agree with all your observations. Maybe we were in close vicinity. All the booths were managed well. Was crowded at the Vaiguntam Saravana bhavan, with folks getting unruly and picking up fights even for parking spots.

Went through coimbatore bypass and it was a mess. Good thing was that they stopped the scanning business, which helped a lot. But overall it took 45mins.

Lost a lot of time at Paliyekkara toll. They are still working on the Fastag lane which is closed for many months now.

Heavy traffic after Aluva and skipped the edappally bypass. Reached by 2pm at Kadavanthra, Kochi.


Edit. Just realized that you had started yesterday evening. I started today morning at 4:15am.

[NPV]

Update from today's drive to Palakkad.
Started at 4:10am and reached Sree Saravana Bhavan near Vaigundam toll at 7:30am. Could feel that traffic was building up from Hosur and the fancy barricades (and accompanied by dancing/flashing red/blue/white lights) blocking parts of one lane slowed the drive down. Add to it numerous trucks enroute made sure progress was lot slower even with less dense traffic. Fastag saved us from spending too much time at the tolls.

L&T bypass was a pain as usual and took about 40 minutes to reach the second last toll near Madukkarai where I made a quick decision to turn off and visit Isha Foundation to see the Adiyogi statue. Gmaps confused us for 15 minutes before we found the correct road! A good
2.5-3 hours later we joined the old Palakkad road at Kovai Pudur again. Did not want to join the L&T bypass again, so decided to take the old Palakkad road but got stuck for about 10 minutes at the narrow railway underpass that could not handle the volume of traffic!

Stopped for lunch at Gowrishankar near Ettimadai and also tanked up at the BP COCO Bunk next door
After a leisurely lunch, reached Palakkad around 2:30pm.

Met a friend at Gowrishankar who mentioned that he started at 5:15 am from Bangalore and traffic was very heavy all the way and he reached Gowrishankar when we exited the place, just to give a perspective of how start time can make a huge difference.

[tortoise]

I also drove to Palakkad today with the hope that the traffic wont be frustrating. Started around 6.35 am from Sarjapur Road today. Chose the Bagalur Road instead of driving into a 10 mins wait in Attibele toll. Took the Kaganallur Nallur road instead of going all the way to Bagalur. Though the road was narrow it was newly laid and given the time of the day there was barely any traffic. Reached the NH flyover at Hosur in exactly 30 mins.

Traffic on NH was resembling the Blr ORR traffic. But Krishnagiri and Thoppur toll booth did not have the kind of wait time I was afraid of. For some reason, I decided to drive through Mettur and join Bhavani. Google indicated I may have lost 10 mins with that choice. But after driving at speeds, a crawling speed near toll booths is not something I fancy. Road through Mettur to reach Bhavani was great except is few places. The traffic near Bhavani was thick. Overall the deviation from Thoppur was a good break from madness and covered the 70 odd kms in about 70 mins.

After joining on NH544 though the speeds improved, traffic was chaotic. The tentative newbies and slower trucks made driving a difficult affair. Reached Karumathampatti around 11.50 where we took a break. So far so good. We were about 90 kms away from sweet home. But, the infamous LT byepass is in between. As the toll booths were showing thick red lines, decided to join the byepass after the first booth. The next one probably had a longer line and Maps indicated 12 mins congestion. But the Trichy road signal backlog was huge and the tail was touching the toll booth. To avoid the next tollbooth, took detour through Trichy road and joined the byepass again through Jail road. Not sure how much time it may have saved though.

The other booths had a smaller backlog, still long enough. Long story short..the 28 kms took 50 mins in all. With almost an hour long break ( 45 min breakfast at Shoolagiri and 15 mins at Karumathampatti) reached home by 1.30 pm

LT byepass will need a mass movement to get them to straighten up. They have blocked the expansion of the lanes through a court order :. I also noticed that they have kept a board in each gate which says "keep change ready". Someone who does not know that 45 rs is for the 30 km stretch may end up paying in all the gates.

-tortoise

[NPV]

I have been a regular on the Bangalore-Coimbatore/Palakkad NH 7/47 route for more than 2 decades and have seen it being widened from a single carriageway to it's current mix of 4 and 6 lane avatar. The last 2 years of driving in this route has not been enjoyable at all. This route now has way too much traffic and too many junctions that make it very dangerous. Lots of 2 wheelers and 3 wheelers (local village and town traffic mixing in). In fact the only good stretch now is the Chengapalli to L & T bypass start section. Ironically this was the last stretch that was widened and has service roads and underpasses along this section making it almost access controlled since local traffic needs are met. Not the case now with all other sections, in many places, the local villages and towns have now extended right beside the "bypasses" , lots of commercial & residential activity all along.

Unless something is done quickly to make the whole route 6 lane with additional service lanes and underpasses, this will only go downhill.

[knightrider_7]

Within a span of two days, did the following routes, all by road.

Kecheri- Alappuzha- Trivandrum (and return via same route)

Kecheri- Chelakkara- Palakkad (same route return)

Kecheri- Calicut.

Roads near wadakkanchery was bad.

Lost about 30 minutes in total journey time at Vyttila due to flyover construction works.

Rest of the roads are in good condition.

[rk_sans]

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

I am driving tomorrow to Munnar. Initially planned to start Sunday early morning. But in a position to start tomorrow. So planning to start by 1PM and break at a decent hotel I found near Tiruppur.

Hoping major part of the crowd will leave today and tomorrow morning.

Which route are you taking ? I am starting on Monday morning to Munnar. Thinking of taking Dindgul - Theni route.

[binand]

Drove Calicut-Perumbavoor yesterday afternoon. Took 5.5 hours end-to-end with about 30 minutes of breaks which I thought is alright. I was spooked by the reports of massive holiday-season jams at Paliyekkara (in one incident, the Thrissur collector got involved), so was looking at ways of avoiding it. After much GMaps-ing, I zeroed in on Thriprayar-Puthukkad (https://goo.gl/maps/DHN7tuqjJR52).

Getting there: From Calicut, the route till Tavanur is common with the regular route (NH 66). The canonical route takes a left turn after the Nila bridge towards Edappal (KL SH 69); this route follows the NH to take a right here towards Ponnani. Thriprayar is about 60 km from this junction.

There is a shorter route diverging from the NH at Chelari which goes vi Parapanangadi-Tirur and merging with NH 66 at Chamravattom beyond the Nila bridge here.

Once we turn off Thriprayar traffic thins appreciably. Road quality is quite good. This road goes to Cherpu, but we have to turn off to a minor side road a couple of km before that towards Urakam. This is an empty single lane road. At Urakam we cross the Thrissur-Irinjalakkuda-Kodungallur road and proceed towards Pudukkad. Just before entering Pudukkad we have a railway gate to cross the Kochi-Chennai main line railway tracks. A couple of hundred metres later we hit the NH 544 at one of the numerous signals along this route.

It was rather a pleasant drive; since I was driving along the Ponnani-Thriprayar section in late evening it was quite nice to leave the window down and let the breeze from the Arabian Sea in. Plus I avoided the Thrissur city traffic and also the Paliyekkara toll. The timing was approximately the same as what Google Maps said would take for the direct route.

No warranties on non-Sunday drives though.

[coolrats]

I am planning to drive down to Attingal on 30th December 2018 which is coming Sunday. I take the Bangalore-Salem-Madurai-Dindigul-Thenmala route. When I did the trip just after the floods I had a horrible time as no roads were there and they diverted to some rubber estate totally like a offroad experience. I had a small car so somehow was lucky to escape. I did come back by going back to Nagercoil and staying on the highway. Please suggest if this route is good now and is the blocks cleared

[tomraven99]

How is the Tirur-Chamravattom-Ponnani-Edappally route now? Have the potholes been relaid?

[NPV]

Update on return journey (Palakkad-Bangalore) on Xmas eve:

Started from Palakkad around 9:45am and stopped for lunch at Sree Saravana Bhavan, Vaigundam at 12:30pm. Traffic was sparse so it was stress free for the most part. Resumed at 1:30pm and reached Attibele at 3:50pm, traffic density went up from Salem onwards. After Attibele, though traffic was actually much lesser than a regular working day, Bangalore infrastructure works that are in progress, slowed us down and we reached the CBD area around MG Road past 5:30pm.

-Noticed that Adith Bhavan (the campus has a CCD + Polar Bear as well) just after the Krishnagiri toll (on the left side in the Bangalore direction) seems to have given way to another branch of Sree Saravana Bhavan. These guys now have branches at Shoolagiri, Krishnagiri, Kaveripattinam and Salem (Vaigundam).