CM Arvind Kejriwal says govt will free 77 Delhi roads of traffic

In February 2017, a task force constituted by the LG identified 77 road corridors in Delhi for implementing several measures to remove severe traffic congestion. However, the progress on the project has been slow.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday took reviewed various ongoing and proposed works on 77 road stretches across the city and said the completion of the project is critical to make Delhi a liveable city and unclog high traffic intensity road corridors.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. (HT Photo)

“We will redesign roads and construct flyovers, underpasses and foot overbridges to rid Delhiites of traffic snarls. The project will be implemented in a phased manner, with high traffic density zones being decongested first. We believe this will be a crucial step towards developing Delhi as the most liveable city,” Kejriwal said.

Many of these choke points are located on Outer Ring Road, Najafgarh Road, Wazirabad Road, Rohtak Road, and Anand Vihar-Apsara Border Road.

In February 2017, a task force constituted by the LG identified 77 road corridors in Delhi for implementing several measures to remove severe traffic congestion. The task force categorised the 77 congested corridors into A, B and C category on the basis of volume of road users. However, the progress on the project has been slow.

The chief minister on Tuesday said that the road stretches will be taken up in phases and work will be expedited to unclog these areas.

Many of these choke points are located on Outer Ring Road, Najafgarh Road, Wazirabad Road, Rohtak Road, and Anand Vihar-Apsara Border Road. (HT Illustration)

A senior government official who is aware of the projects said, “The task force had identified 77 corridors where various bottlenecks were causing to traffic jams. Throughout these 77 corridors, the public works department (PWD) has identified and implemented various short-term and long-term measures that will help ease out traffic snarls. The current status of these measures was reviewed during the meeting chaired by the chief minister,” official said.

The official added that work has been initiated on many of these projects while others are still in the “conception and consultancy phase”.

In east Delhi, the government is building an elevated corridor between Anand Vihar and Apsara Border. “The project involves construction of a six-lane 2.2km flyover between Anand Vihar Railway overbridge and Vivek Vihar intersection to ease congestion in the area,” said a PWD official who asked not to be named. The new corridor will provide signal-free ride to vehicles moving from Dilshad Garden, UP border side to Anand Vihar, and then on to Delhi-Meerut Expressway.

In north-east Delhi, a similar signal-free corridor will be developed between the point near Signature Bridge on Wazirabad Road to Bhopura intersection, near Loni in Uttar Pradesh. “We are redesigning Wazirabad Road by adding service road from T-point Karawal Nagar up to Gokulpuri flyover and redeveloping the existing footpath. Two flyovers will be constructed here --- one at Karawal Nagar-Gokulpuri junction and the second one at Gagan Cinema T-Junction and Nand Nagri. The flyover at Karawal Nagar-Gokulpuri is being constructed along with the construction of the Metro Line on the same level using a wider flyover structure,” the PWD official said.

On Rohtak road that connects west Delhi to Haryana’s Bahadurgarh, PWD will widen the railway bridge between Peeragarhi Chowk and Mangolpuri and widen the slip roads at Peeragarhi Chowk to improve traffic circulation in the area.

On August 10, deputy chief minister Sisodia, who also holds the PWD portfolio, announced that the Peeragarhi intersection will be decongested over the next one and half years. PWD is also widening the bridge on the drain near Zakhira/Ashoka Park metro station as well as the bridge on the drain near DTC depot Nangloi.

The PWD official added that multiple interventions have been proposed on the 47-km Outer Ring road -- one of the main traffic arteries in the city. The Delhi government officials have said that at least five key interventions will be taken on this stretch. “For traffic moving from Mangolpuri flyover to Madhuban Chowk a slip road will be constructed towards Punjabi Bagh to remove bottleneck just after the B-Block, Mangolpuri Chowk. Similarly, construction of underpass will be taken up near Mukarba Chowk along with improvement of corridor between Mukarba Chowk to Wazirabad and construction of a new road over the supplementary drain,” the official said.

S Velmurugan, chief scientist, Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) said adding new roads cannot be a lasting solution to the rising traffic congestion. “For decongesting the city, the government should focus on making people shift from private transportation to public mode. We can keep on constructing one flyover after another. Infrastructure development should be taken up at select locations only. We must focus on reducing demand by expanding Metro network and improving feeder bus system,” he added.

He added that intelligent transportation systems should be taken up to manage traffic better since it will take care of minor irritants that cause long traffic jams due to the sheer volume of traffic.