Traffic police draws priority list of 120 congestion spots
The Mumbai traffic police has drawn a priority list of over 120 locations in the city which will be monitored throughout the year to check for traffic congestion and ways to avoid it.
These 120 locations have been strategically selected to manage the city traffic effectively based on the surveys conducted by the traffic department.
The congestion points have spread across the city and are covered with a wide network of CCTV cameras, to not only monitor the spot with traffic personnel as well as with eyes in the air. In case the traffic gets congested more than often on one of these points, a senior traffic official will be deployed to restore the vehicular traffic, said a source. Of these 120 locations, some of the prime locations which sees a traffic congestion includes Cadbury junction in Mahalaxmi, Haji Ali, Kings Circle, Hindmata, Bandra-Kurla Complex, Santacruz-Chembur Link Road, Dr Ambedkar Chowk, JJ junction, Bandra-Worli sealink, LBS Marg, Dharavi T junction among others. The main focus of identifying the locations is to keep the main check points such as Dahisar Toll Naka, Mulund Check Naka at ease, ensuring smooth traffic flow.
The identification and monitoring of congestion points is one of the many experiments the Mumbai Traffic Police has undertaken. While some see the light of success with flying colours, others might not have the same fate after all. Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Amitesh Kumar said, “There are many trial and error that takes place while experimenting with new techniques. Sometimes when we put up a barricade to divert the traffic, it does not work out well and eventually we are forced to remove it from that spot.”
Transportation expert Ashok Datar said the very first step for decongestion of streets is to get rid of the onstreet illegal parking. “Big vehicles such as transport buses take up a lot of space on a three-lane road. Efforts should be made to manage the available space on road and make it safer and congestion free,” said Datar.
Kanchan Jha, a civil engineer, who travels daily from Malad to Mahim on her twowheeler said, “The ongoing Metro construction work has resulted into many prime locations being one of the most congested spots in the city. The stretch between Kandivli-Malad-Goregaon on the Western Express Highway (WEH) eats up good 45 minutes to cross over in peak hours.” “Road widths will have to be contiguous. This means that a four-lane road should remain so throughout without any bottleneck in between. On-street parking is a huge problem,” said Binoy Mascarenhas, head of integrated urban transport at WRI India.