Shankar Chowk decongestion plan begins; strict curbs cause commuter confusion

HT conducted a spot check at Shankar Chowk, Iffco Chowk and Ambience Mall to understand the effectiveness of phase one of the traffic decongestion plan.

Traffic police on Thursday rolled out – to widespread commuter confusion – its decongestion plan meant to ease traffic jams and ensure smooth vehicular movement on a stretch between Ambience Mall and Shankar Chowk. Officials said that a three-lane segregation was planned to reduce the traffic pressure on city’s busy junctions including Iffco Chowk, Udyog Vihar, Cyber City and Sikanderpur Ghosi.

Traffic police divert vehicles to ensure smooth flow on National Highway-48 near Ambience Mall on Thursday. (Parveen Kumar)

HT conducted a spot check at Shankar Chowk, Iffco Chowk and Ambience Mall to understand the effectiveness of phase one of the traffic decongestion plan. According to the plan, the Ambience Mall U-turn underpass merging into the leftward lane was designated for commuters heading towards the shopping centre; the middle lane for the commuters heading to DLF Cyber City; and the rightmost lane was dedicated to commuters leaving for Jaipur.

An extended barricade was installed on the busy stretch outside Ambience Mall on NH-48 to segregate the three lanes. An additional force of at least 10 traffic police officers was deployed outside the Ambience Mall U-turn underpass to manage the traffic coming from Delhi’s Rajokri Flyover on NH-48 (Delhi-Gurugram-Jaipur Expressway) and commuters heading towards Cyber City and Shankar Chowk.

During the check, several commuters said they did not notice clear signage indicating lane segregation, which affected lane discipline. Some motorists, unaware of the change, were seen crossing the divider outside the underpass to reach Ambience Mall. The carriageway also saw additional traffic from those heading towards Cyber Hub.

A particular section on the extreme left of the NH 48’s busy patch was reserved using red-colored parking cones to streamline the traffic flow on the expressway by dividing it into equal parts.

When asked by HT, commuters said that they were unaware of the changes introduced by the traffic police and that they had to face extremely slowed-down traffic moments on the stretch.

“I’ve seen many trials conducted by the authorities before. However, the traffic situation never improves in this area,” said Subhash (single name), a daily commuter.

Another commuter said the traffic situation near Ambience Mall remained largely unchanged on Thursday.

HT found that the underpass leading to Ambience Mall was also congested during peak hours around 1.30 pm. However, three hours later, the slowed-down traffic was confined to a 300-meter-long patch outside the underpass.

“It seemed the barricading could have been arranged better, as vehicles had to adjust slightly to the left while exiting the underpass, which slowed down traffic,” said Dhruv (goes by single name), a commuter.

Satyapal Yadav, assistant commissioner of police (ACP) traffic and highways, said that it was the first day of the trial and that awareness campaigns about the traffic streamlining plan would be conducted soon.

“We expect commuters to gradually adopt proper lane discipline, and we anticipate a noticeable easing of traffic along Cyber City and Ambience Mall over the next four to five days as the trial phase progresses,” Yadav said.

A team of traffic police officials inspected the stretch during peak evening hours. The area where some commuters had tried to jump the divider was found to be barricaded.