Ghaziabad: DME’s rail overbridge turns traffic bottleneck

With traffic returning to the roads after two months of Covid-induced curfew, thousands of commuters using the Delhi Meerut Expressway (DME) are forced to brave long snarls during rush hour at the under-construction rail-overbridge (ROB) at Chipiyana (near ABES College), which has become a traffic bottleneck

With traffic returning to the roads after two months of Covid-induced curfew, thousands of commuters using the Delhi Meerut Expressway (DME) are forced to brave long snarls during rush hour at the under-construction rail-overbridge (ROB) at Chipiyana (near ABES College), which has become a traffic bottleneck.

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Currently, the 16-lane ROB (which is 125 m long on one side and 90 m on the other) has only four lanes active. National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) officials said that they were scheduled to open six more by July, but that has been now pushed to August 15 because the curfew that affected work.

The ROB is the only major structure yet to be completed on the DME’s 19.2km Phase 2 spanning UP-Gate to Dasna. The section serves short distance commuters travelling to Ghaziabad, Greater Noida, Noida and Delhi, while it is also a link to long distance commuters travelling to Moradabad, Bareilly and even to Meerut.

“For the past 10-15 days, the ROB has turned into a bottleneck and thousands of commuters get stuck during peak hours. It takes anything from 30 minutes to even an hour to navigate the ROB. The traffic police are deployed but they struggle to manage such a massive traffic,” said Namita Gaur, a resident of Crossings Republik Township.

“The problem is more acute for local travellers as they have to battle snarls and jams at the ROB every morning and evening and there is hardly any alternative route available,” said Nishant Sinha,a resident of Nehru Nagar.

NHAI said the traffic at the ROB section was around 70,000 passenger car units (PCUs -- which is a measure of traffic taking into account the different vehicle sizes and types) whereas the section could accommodate only around 30,000 to 40,000 PCUs, which was the daily amount of traffic during the partial curfew in April and May.

“We have just opened four lanes of the ROB and six more were to be opened in July but now they will be opened only by August 15. The rest are scheduled to open by the end of December,” said Mudit Garg, project director from NHAI.

He said the authority suggested some traffic regulations, but Ghaziabad traffic police did not accept them.

“We requested traffic police to regulate the vehicular speed at other points on the expressway so that the ROB section does not clog but they did not implement it,” he said.

Traffic police officials said they had deployed personnel there to manage traffic, but the volume at the ROB was exceptionally high.

“If we regulate speed of incoming traffic on the ROB and at other points, we risk having a jam all along the expressway. Likewise, we cannot put up barriers as they will hinder traffic flow. We have asked the NHAI to expedite the work. Once the monsoon arrives, there may be further delays in opening the lanes,” said Ramanand Kushwaha, superintendent of police (traffic).