‘Road engineering’ to check traffic snarls

60 crossings to be transformed to remove bottlenecks, make more space for vehicles

LUCKNOW Having failed in streamlining the city’s traffic and controlling frequent jams, the district administration and departments concerned are now planning to take the help of ‘road engineering’ to make commuting easy. The departments have also shortlisted more than 60 prime crossings in the city prone to traffic jams, to make them congestion-free.

Officials said shortlisted crossings would undergo certain transformation through road engineering to make more room for vehicles.

They said the transformation would be a collective effort in which all the departments— Nagar Nigam, Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) , electricity department and others would play a crucial role.

“About 60 crossings have been shortlisted initially that would be transformed to remove bottlenecks and to make more space for vehicles,” a senior administrative official said.

Indira Gandhi Pratishthan Crossing, Vijaypuri Underpass, Kathauta Crossing, Chinhat Tiraha, Mini Stadium Crossing, Kamta crossing, Sushma Hospital Crossing, Polytechnic-PICUP underpass, Tedi Pulia, IIM Crossing, Dubagga, Bhootnath Crossing, Patrakarpuram Crossing,

Kapoorthala Crossing, Alambagh Crossing and a few others would undergo change.

Officials said the changes would include razing of encroachments, illumination and streamlining of traffic flow. Other than this, the departments would also make necessary changes or would rectify the engineering errors like construction or removal of dividers, creating passes, construction of dividers and speed breakers and

removal of electricity poles hindering the traffic flow.

The administration is also going to install street lights on all the crossings.

Presently, the traffic lights are functional at around 44 crossings of which around 20 are out of order following the ongoing metro work in the city.

District magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma said efforts were being made to streamline the city traffic.

“We are chalking out a special plan to streamline the traffic flow,” said Sharma. Sharma said traffic jam was a problem that needed to be tackled collectively.

“We are also planning to launch a massive awareness drive to inculcate traffic sense among the daily commuters and to tell them dos and don’ts’,” he said.

He said special attention would be paid to the crossings near schools and colleges.