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Heavy traffic congestion at city entry/exit points
To make matters worse, traffic on the flyover at Gadital chowk, Hadapsar, towards Solapur and Saswad has been closed over the weekend to inspect repairs carried out last year
Pune - Over the last few years, the points of entry/exit into/from the city namely Hadapsar, Wagholi and Viman nagar have been seen to be choked by traffic jams 24x7, seven days of the week, every week, inconveniencing citizens entering or exiting the city.
To make matters worse, traffic on the flyover at Gadital chowk, Hadapsar, towards Solapur and Saswad has been closed over the weekend to inspect repairs carried out last year. This is not only causing congestion on the route under the bridge but also internal roads in the entire Hadapsar area. So much so that long queues of vehicles can be seen on the 2 to 3 kilometre stretch from Magarpatta chowk to Ravidarshan chowk since Saturday.
Sunil Jadhav, senior police inspector, Hadapsar traffic division, said, “There is a large amount of traffic in this area every day. At certain times in the morning and evening, the traffic is slow due to a large number of vehicles. The closure of traffic on the bridge has increased stress on the road below.”
While Srinivas Bonala, special project head, PMC, said, “According to the rules of the Indian Roads Congress (IRC), the work of load testing on the flyover has been started since midnight. The inspection is being carried out by stopping the load vehicles on the bridge in stages. After the inspection is completed, the traffic will be restored again.”
Commuters are facing similar problems on Nagar road from Viman nagar to Wagholi with huge malls and residential societies having come up in the area, compounded further by private tourist buses headed for Ahmednagar, Aurangabad and Nagpur parked at Nagar road chowk.
Surendra Mahajan, a local resident, said, “I travel daily by Nagar road and it takes me around one hour to reach from Yerawada chowk to my home in Wagholi during evening peak hours. This is the entry point of the city and bang at the entry point, we are stuck in traffic for hours.”
