Awaiting a snarl solution

It’s not just the high volume of traffic, skewed planning or faulty road engineering that has spelt doom for Ashram crossing.

It’s not just the high volume of traffic, skewed planning or faulty road engineering that has spelt doom for Ashram crossing.

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Delay in the execution of Eastern and Western peripheral highways and the Delhi government’s inability to give shape to the proposed bypass between Ring Road and Faridabad in Haryana has led to a large volume of inter-city and local traffic clogging this South Delhi stretch.

The presence of a large number of commercial vehicles also adds to traffic snarls on Ring Road and Mathura Road.

While the western and eastern peripheral highways are supposed to keep non-destined commercial vehicles away from Delhi, the bypass would have provided alternate road to inter-city traffic.

With more than 25 per cent additional traffic plying on Ring Road and Mathura Road, experts believe capacity augmentation is the only option to decongest Ashram crossing.

What would’ve been
Since there’s no scope for widening the road and no utility of another flyover, the construction of these two roads, experts claim, would have divided vehicular traffic and eased ashram crossing.

While inter-city traffic would have shifted to Kalindi Kunj bypass, Mathura Road and Ashram crossing would have catered to
the local traffic.

“A guest house of the UP government was falling on the proposed alignment of the road,” a senior PWD official said, requesting anonymity.

“The UP government refused to give us that piece of land. It also staked claim on a piece of land that we had acquired from the Delhi Development Authority.”

The Kalindi Kunj bypass was to be constructed in two phases. In first phase, the bypass was to connect Ring Road near Kalindi Colony with Kalindi Kunj.

In second phase, it would have been extended till Sector 37 in Faridabad.

Stubborn UP
The government had cleared Rs 100.15 crore for the project in March 2002 and the construction was to be complete by January 2005.

But the construction stopped a few months later when the Uttar Pradesh government expressed its objection.

“The government made all efforts to revive the project but failed. We also proposed an elevated road to save the guest house but the UP government did not agree,” said Dr A.K. Walia who was Delhi’s PWD minister at the time.

While, on one hand, the Delhi government plans to revive the project after the Commonwealth Games to be held in October, the traffic police are banking on the upcoming elevated road on Barapullah drain to bring some respite from traffic snarls on Ashram crossing and along the Ring Road.

“The PWD plans to extend the Barapullah elevated road up to INA near AIIMS. Once this road is complete, it will take pressure off the Ashram crossing and Ring Road,” a senior traffic police officer said.

“Motorists travelling between South Delhi and East Delhi will prefer taking the elevated road to move faster.”