Sus chokes with heavy traffic, commuters stuck for hours on roads

Stretch between main square-Kohinoor Tower a nightmare for commuters

While Sus Gaon has seen massive real estate development in the past five years, infrastructure, especially roads, haven’t kept pace, leading to traffic jams and commuters stuck in snarls for hours on end. Making matters worse are the hawkers and haphazardly parked vehicles hogging whatever little space is left on the footpaths and by-lanes.

While the roads of Sus Gaon are already narrow, haphazardly parked vehicles and vendors encroaching footpaths and by-lanes is putting additional pressure on the already burdened infrastructure. (HT PHOTO)

Rajesh Kamle, a resident of Sus Gaon who owns a makeshift footwear repair shop near the chowk, blames the government for the roads reeling under the onslaught of vehicles as road amenities are lacking and the increasing population and heavy use of roads by techies travelling to Hinjewadi Information Technology (IT) Park is only adding to the problem.

For the thousands travelling to Hinjewadi and other places including Symbiosis and Lupin Pharma, the stretch between the main square in Sus village and Kohinoor Falcon Tower is a nightmare to navigate during peak hours. Aparna Deshpande, an IT engineer, said, “I use this stretch daily and lately, there has been a long queue of vehicles which is delaying my journey to Hinjewadi IT Park by almost 30 minutes. The police and local agencies need to act to improve the situation.”

While the roads of Sus Gaon are already narrow, haphazardly parked vehicles and vendors encroaching footpaths and by-lanes is putting additional pressure on the already burdened infrastructure. For most commuters, both mornings and evenings are terrible and to add to that, schools break in the afternoon leading to further chaos.

Venkatesh Powar, a frequent commuter, said, “Sometimes the traffic police come, but there’s no guarantee when they will be there. Vehicles rush to overtake each other leading to unnecessary traffic congestion, and we get stuck here for one to two hours. If I get out of the house at 4 pm, it is 8 pm by the time I cross Sus and reach home.”

While Sus Gaon has seen an increase in the number of real estate projects in the past five years, the roads have been widened only along some stretches. A motorist who crosses Sus Gaon every day on his way to work said, “Sometimes when the situation becomes dire, villagers come out and help manage the traffic. Rickshaw drivers refuse to go any further and ask us to get down. They charge exorbitant rates for the five to six kilometre stretch which usually costs no more than ₹20. It feels useless to fill petrol as the vehicles don’t seem to move.”

Bapu Bangar, police deputy commissioner of the Pimpri-Chinchwad traffic branch, said that the narrow two to three kilometre stretch requires widening. “It’s condition needs to be improved to ensure the regular flow of vehicles. At the same time, dividers need to be added so that citizens can drive in a disciplined fashion.” During peak hours, the police monitor movement to avoid bottlenecks. Further action needs to be taken by the road construction department to ease traffic in the area, Bangar said.