Rain plan: Gurgaon’s Hero Honda Chowk flyover to offer two-way traffic movement

The move will help reduce the volume of traffic on Gurgaon’s Hero Honda Chowk on days it grapples with waterlogging

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has decided to facilitate two-way traffic movement on the only functioning carriageway of Hero Honda Chowk flyover to tackle waterlogging at the junction.

Work on the remaining carriageway of the Hero Honda Chowk flyover is expected to be completed by July. (Sanjeev Verma/HT FILE PHOTO)

The move will help commuters bypass the waterlogged area at the junction until the remaining carriageway of the flyover (for traffic from New Delhi to Manesar) is completed next month.

Ashok Sharma, project director, NHAI, confirmed this development.

“In the event of an emergency arising out of waterlogging, the left carriageway (for traffic from Manesar towards Delhi) of the (Hero Honda Chowk) flyover could be enabled for two-way traffic movement in a bid to ease congestion on the stretch,” Sharma said.

The decision came less than a week after the city reeled under extensive waterlogging in the light of recent showers, grounding traffic for hours and leaving commuters stranded.

HT ran a report saying that the completion of Hero Honda Chowk flyover is the only viable solution to the perennial waterlogging problem.

Similarly, after a downpour last Friday, waterlogging at the junction disrupted traffic movement for an hour.

Aside from these two occasions, in July last year, there was virtually no traffic movement on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway for nearly 48 hours after the junction literally went under water due to breaches in the Badshahpur drain, heavy rain and poor drainage system.

Read I Ensure Hero Honda Chowk is free of waterlogging: Chief secretary to Gurgaon officials

NHAI officials further added that since the junction is situated in a low-lying area, even less rainfall causes excessive waterlogging as the run-off from the drain settles there.

While commuters heading towards Pataudi or Sector 34 will not directly benefit from the opening of carriageway for two-way traffic and escape the waterlogged area, they can take heart from the fact that the opening of the carriageway for two-way traffic movement will reduce the load of vehicles on the stretch.