‘Need to stop planning road projects in isolation’
STUDY FINDS Time gained from NH24 is lost at Sarai Kale Khan
NEW DELHI: The widening of National Highway-24 has dramatically reduced the travel time between Anand Vihar and Sarai Kale Khan, a study conducted by the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) found. But the time gained by commuters due to NH-24 is lost because of traffic bottleneck at Sarai Kale Khan, the study found.
The traffic movement on the corridor was analysed by SPA as part of a study on traffic behaviour at merging sections across Delhi. “The travel time between Anand Vihar and Sarai Kale Khan has been reduced by 26% and 43% during peak and off-peak hours, respectively, due to widening of NH-24. But Sarai Kale Khan remains a major traffic bottleneck,” said Sewa Ram, professor of transport planning at SPA, who conducted the study.
Transport experts, meanwhile, said the problem of congestion on Ring Road around Sarai Kale Khan was bound to happen as projects are “planned in isolation”. The impact of a new flyover or a road widening project on the neighbouring road network is not taken into consideration while approving any new road project, the experts said.
“The traffic bottleneck or congestion points are just getting shifted from one place to the other. There is a need to delineate an area around the project and do an i mpact analysis before approving the project. At present, with each project the problem is just shifting from one location to the other,” said Amit Bhatt, head of transport, WRI India.
Ram said there is a need to change the way road infrastructure projects are planned in the city. “There is a lesson to be learnt from this project. Whenever a new flyover or expressway is added, authorities should plan for capacity augmentation of neighbouring road network. This problem was bound to happen, as the existing Ring Road can’t take the increased traffic load,” he said.
Officials from National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) said they had written to the Delhi government’s Public Works Department (PWD) to take measures to clear the traffic bottleneck. NHAI officials say that there has been no substantial increase in traffic volume of pas- senger car units (PCUS).
R P Singh, project director of NHAI, said, “The vehicular load on the NH-24 stretch is 1.15 PCU, which is almost the same as before the widening project started. In fact, there has been a 30% reduction in commercial vehicles on NH-24 due to the opening of Eastern Peripheral Expressway.”
Delhi Traffic Police officials said they are conducting a study to pinpoint problem areas on Ring Road. Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Alok Kumar said, “Traffic going towards south Delhi from NH-24 gets slowed down near Sarai Kale Khan. Similarly, traffic towards north and central Delhi gets stuck at the Bhairon Marg trisection. These two traffic bottlenecks have a cascading effect on entire stretch. We will soon write to PWD in this regard.”