E-Paper
Non-effective traffic diversion plan delays demolition of overbridge in Pune
PMC is exploring the possibility of using Ghorpadi village RoB along the Pune-Solapur railway line to ease the traffic problems caused by the Sadhu Vaswani ROB
The Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) plan to demolish the unsafe Sadhu Vaswani railway overbridge (ROB) between Koregaon Park and Pune Cantonment area seems to be delayed for lack of traffic arrangement.
The experimental traffic diversions have led to severe congestions.
To address the issue, PMC is exploring the possibility of using Ghorpadi village RoB along the Pune-Solapur railway line to ease the traffic problems caused by the Sadhu Vaswani ROB.
The bridge connects the eastern and southern parts of the city to the northern area, leading to heavy traffic. With the bridge closed, vehicles are diverted through narrow roads, passing by large hospitals, government buildings, and army headquarters. The change left residents to spend one to one-and-a-half hours traveling half a kilometre on these routes.
To accommodate the traffic, footpaths are reduced, and more wardens and traffic cops are deployed, and parking facility lifted on many roads. The traffic change has been unsuccessful, prompting PMC and the police to seek alternative options.
As per plan, PMC has decided to begin demolition work of RoB on March 26 and construct a new flyover. Officials twice revised traffic diversion plan, but failed to address the issue.
Vikram Kumar, PMC commissioner, said, “A flyover is being constructed at Ghorpadi village on the Pune-Solapur railway line by PMC. As the work of the bridge will be completed by the end of March, it will be used as an alternative road. If the bridge is made, it will benefit commuters coming from Hadapsar, Wanowrie and Camp to go directly to Mundhwa and Koregaon Park. It will be possible to go to this area from Kalyaninagar, Mundhwa and the traffic stress will be reduced. We will discuss the plan with traffic police department soon.”
Abhijit Ambekar, executive engineer, PMC project department, said, “Currently, we are using the existing Sadhu Vaswani RoB for one-way traffic to ease congestion. However, demolishing the RoB is not possible without closing it to traffic. Last week, the traffic department closed the RoB for a few hours as an experiment, but it resulted in chaos. It took the traffic police more than four hours to manage the situation. As a result, we decided to reopen the RoB for one-way traffic. The final decision will be made by the police commissioner and the civic chief.”
Although PMC awarded the construction contract for RoB four months ago, no progress has been made due to ineffective traffic diversion plans.
