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Shaheen Bagh protest enters Day 27, snarls spread further
New Delhi: Road 13A, a 2.5km-long connection between Delhi and Noida, has been closed for 27 days now, since December 15. As protesters continue to camp at Shaheen
New Delhi: Road 13A, a 2.5km-long connection between Delhi and Noida, has been closed for 27 days now, since December 15. As protesters continue to camp at Shaheen Bagh against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the prospect of a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC), the closure of this road has thrown traffic around south and central Delhi out of gear.
The lack of a proper traffic plan to accommodate the increased vehicular volume at Ashram, Noida Link Road, Barapullah elevated corridors, the Ring Road, Indraprastha Marg, and Bhairon Marg. The cascading effect of this is also plaguing areas around Kalkaji, Nehru Place, CR Park and Greater Kailash.
Narendra Singh Bundela, joint commissioner of police (traffic), said traffic is being diverted, but these jams are bound to continue till the protests are called off.
“We have done everything we can. We have the maximum deployment and are also diverting traffic evenly to not clog one road. But this is a traffic-heavy stretch,” he said.
This link road, which connects Noida to Sarita Vihar via Kalindi Kunj, was blocked by the Delhi traffic police over the anti-CAA protests in the area from December 15. What has further aggravated the traffic snarls is that parts of the Mathura Road, near the Ashram intersection, has been cordoned off for the construction of an underpass by the Public Works Department (PWD).
However, with the protest continuing, and traffic in parts of south, south-east and central Delhi reduced to a crawl, the Delhi traffic police are yet to come up with a concrete plan to ease commuters’ woes.
“The problem is that it is not a construction or a planned programme where we know that we will require the road to remain closed for a set time frame. It (the road) had to be kept closed for traffic for longer than we had anticipated, but we have deployed additional traffic policemen on the stretch and are also updating the status on our social media accounts,” a senior traffic police official said.
Traffic police estimates show that the Ashram intersection, the worst hit by the closure of Road 13A, used to get nearly 3.5 lakh vehicles during peak morning and evening rush hours. However, over the last month, it has been taking an additional load of one lakh vehicles a day.
Mohini Yadav, a resident of Noida’s Sector 46, said that apart from the closure of a shorter entry to Delhi, roads inside the Capital have also been clogged over the last fortnight. She travels to her office at ITO.
“The detour takes me an extra 15 minutes. But the jams do not stop there. The road construction at Indraprastha Marg has already made driving a painful experience,” Yadav said.
Hindustan Times had reported last week how the Barapullah elevated corridor was becoming a traffic choke point because commuters, including heavy vehicles, are now using the route to get to Noida.
Another commuter, Sumukhi Rajagopal said that on Thursday evening she got stuck in crawling traffic at Ashram intersection, and the jams continued through Ring Road near Nehru Place, and was seen going further.
“I took a turn towards East of Kailash, from under the Nehru Place flyover. But the drive was painful to say the least. Office time rush is one thing, but the traffic was really bad and the worst thing was that there was no traffic police officer to guide commuters anywhere on the route,” Rajagopal said.
S Velmurugan, senior principal scientist, traffic engineering and safety division, Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) said, “The problem is that because of the road closure, all traffic is coming and converging at the Ashram intersection. But at Ashram, the underpass construction has only left two-and-a-half lanes for vehicles. This is not only creating a traffic mess but is also adding to air and noise pollution.”
