Gurgaon: Jam prevails at Sirhaul on Day 2, police to continue with the trial

Gurgaon

Gurgaon

Serpentine snarls were the order of the day, on Tuesday, at Sirhaul where the traffic police had placed jersey barriers and assigned lanes for different vehicles to streamline traffic and reduce congestion. (Sanjeev Verma/HT PHOTO)

Sirhaul, on the Delhi-Gurgaon border, remained gridlocked on Tuesday, the same as on Monday, but the Gurgaon traffic police is sticking to its guns.

Police said they will continue with the diversions that were created on Monday as a way to check bottlenecks in the area.

The traffic police had demarcated the entry and exit points for commercial and non-commercial vehicles using jersey barriers to streamline the flow of traffic. But, since motorists were caught unawares, the move resulted in snarls that took hours to clear on Monday.

On Day 2 of the trial, in an effort to ease the congestion, commissioner of police Sandeep Khirwar visited the spot to assess the situation.

Around 3pm, Khirwar and senior police officers from Gurgaon and Delhi Police visited Sirhaul to take stock of the situation. Officers of the Gurgaon and Delhi police held a meeting in Sirhaul to discuss possible solutions to the problem, sources said, adding that Kirwar has directed officers to come up with alternatives.

Traffic police officers said that one of Khirwar’s directives was to continue with the current experiment and increase awareness among commuters in the interim.

“We have received directions to continue with the experiment. It is important that during the trial phase, commuters stay patient and maintain lane discipline. This experiment can be a solution to the ongoing traffic problems (faced at the toll plaza),” assistant commissioner of police (traffic) Hira Singh said.

Singh said ever since the diversions were created, there has been a significant increase in traffic flow in the extreme left carriageway, which is meant for vehicles travelling towards Rajokri, Kapasehra, DLF Phase-3 and the Ambience Island.

Incidentally, commuters in the extreme left carriageway and the extreme right carriageway seem to be the only beneficiaries of the change.

Carriageway on the extreme right is meant for use by non-commercial vehicles travelling towards New Delhi after descending from the Shankar Chowk flyover.

For those travelling in the other two carriageways—for non-commercial vehicles from Cyber City to New Delhi, and commercial vehicles rejoining traffic after paying the toll tax—the journey has remained “as bad as before”.

“It took me 50 minutes to cover the stretch from Shankar Chowk flyover till the Rajokri Chowk flyover. There was complete chaos as vehicles attempted to switch lanes after descending the flyover, but ended up converging with traffic coming from Cyber City,” Shaurya Sinha, an employee at a software firm in Cyber City, said.

Commuters also said they had trouble with the signage.

“I had to turn towards Rajokri but was unable to access the correct carriageway as my path blocked by jersey barriers. I was inadvertently driving on the extreme right carriageway that is meant for going towards
New Delhi. I had to go to the Dwarka-Kapasehra exit for again heading in my direction. Instead of putting the signage at the end of the flyover, authorities should relocate it at the start at the flyover so that commuters can accordingly choose the correct lane,” Dhruv Virmani, a resident of Shanti Niketan in New Delhi, said.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Gurgaon police said: “We issued an advisory and used different means of communication to tell commuters about the diversions. However, since Monday was the first day after the weekend, many people were caught unawares and faced massive jams. We want to assure citizens that we are putting all efforts for things to improve and make the area congestion-free. The trial will go on for a few more days. We are putting our best efforts to curb the jams and hope that things will start improving soon.”