Gurgaon commuters happy with U-turn flyover at Iffco Chowk

Crossing the Iffco Chowk would otherwise take commuters over 20-25 minutes during the peak hour as it turned into a bottleneck with commuters heading in different directions.

Commuters heaved a sigh of relief with the opening of a U-turn flyover at Iffco Chowk and said it will make their commute to New Delhi and city areas located east of the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway easier.

The elevated U-turn at Iffco Chowk was opened on Wednesday. (Parveen Kumar/HT Photo)

Prior to the road expansion projects at three important junctions — Iffco Chowk, Rajiv Chowk and Signature Towers — on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, commuters had to take a right turn at the heavily congested Iffco Chowk for heading towards New Delhi or head straight to reach Sukhrali.

Crossing the Iffco Chowk could take commuters over 20-25 minutes during the peak hour as it turned into a bottleneck with commuters heading in different directions.

After facing perennial jams and congestion, commuters said they were able to zip through the U-turn flyover to their destination and gave the project a thumbs-up.

“Iffco Chowk is arguably the busiest junction in the city as it not only carries traffic from New Delhi into the city and vice versa but is also an opening to the malls and corporate offices located on the Mehrauli-Gurgaon road. Due to these reasons, the junction is always congested,” Manish Sinha, a resident of Essel Towers, said.

“Hence, to bypass the traffic at Iffco Chowk and reach Shankar Chowk in a few minutes was a great experience,” Manish said.

Residents of Sukhrali were also a happy lot as an overhead U-turn was one of their long-standing demands for decongesting traffic in their area.

“We have been demanding engineering changes for more than 15 years. The area was a permanent bottleneck for traffic movement. Once the underpass and pedestrian overbridge are completed, our demands will be fulfilled and traffic movement will be streamlined,” Ashok Saran, a resident of Sukhrali, said.

Ashok said that the new underpass helped residents reach their destinations — towards Manesar and MG Road — in shorter than usual time. Some said they saved around 15 minutes in one-way travel.

National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is building another elevated U-turn at Iffco Chowk, behind ABW Tower, which is expected to open on December 31. The under-construction U-turn will assist commuters travelling from Sector 17 towards MG Road or Manesar.