BOGGED DOWN IN BOTTLENECKS!
ROAD REALITY Travel time is increasing and average speed of traffic is decreasing. We give a lowdown on what clogs Lucknow’s arteries and the possible solutions to decongest them. A status check shows that a bus ride on the 4-km Hussainganj-Sikanderbagh r
How long does it take to cover a 4-km-long stretch within city limits, if one moves at normal speed, say 40kmph? Ideally, the answer is around six minutes. But such calculations go haywire on the stretch connecting Hussainganj crossing to Sikandarbagh crossing.
A reality check carried out by HT on Saturday to assess travel time on the busy stretch (during off-peak hours) brought to fore many things that add to the commuters’ pain. A city bus ride on this 4-km jam-prone route took around 35 minutes.
But daily commuters told us that during peak hours, it takes an hour or even more to cover the short but busiest stretch in the heart of the city.
LUCKNOW: How long does it take to cover a 4-km-long stretch within city limits, if one moves at normal speed, say 40kmph? Ideally, the answer is around six minutes. But such calculations go haywire on the stretch connecting Hussainganj crossing to Sikandarbagh crossing.
A reality check carried out by HT on Saturday to assess travel time on the busy stretch (during off-peak hours) brought to fore many things that add to the commuters’ pain.
A city bus ride on this 4-km jam-prone route took around 35 minutes.
But daily commuters told us that during peak hours, it takes an hour or even more to cover the short but busiest stretch in the heart of the city.
The reality check began around 3:30pm, when HT team boarded a city bus from Hussainganj crossing. This bus (UP 32 CZ9719) from Gomti Nagar Depot shuttles on route no 11, between Charbagh and Chinhat via Gomti Nagar.
No sooner did the bus gather speed, it was soon caught in a bottleneck on the Burlington crossing — perhaps the busiest crossing that sees traffic from Charbagh railway station, Cantonment road towards Sadar, Cantonment road towards Qaiserbagh and Vidhan Bhawan.
The crossing was being manned by a traffic cop, who said that manning traffic at this point is perhaps the toughest job – as traffic inflow is very high and outflow is far too less.
After getting stuck for a good eight minutes, the bus was diverted to the Cantonment road, leading towards the Qaiserbagh crossing from where it reached Royal Hotel crossing, near Bapu Bhawan via Islamia College.
It took another seven to eight minutes for the bus to reach the crossing.
Despite it not being a busy day (less of school and officer-goers), the bus moved at snail’s pace and reached Hazratganj crossing, where it again got stuck in a
jam, which was perhaps due to demonstrations at Gandhi Pratima.
“Dharnas and jams are a routine affair at Hazratganj crossing. I don’t know why the administration allows protestors to stage demonstration at such busy crossings. Most of the time these people remain the main cause for traffic jams that also contributes to increasing pollution,” said Surendra Pal, the bus conductor.
The bus eventually moved, after braving a jam for almost 8 minutes. The bus was also bogged in bottlenecks on Ashok Marg (the stretch from Hazratganj to Sikanderbagh) due to haphazard parking of vehicles on the roadsides and a jam-like situation at Jawahar Bhawan, but chugged along somehow. The journey finally concluded at Sikanderbagh crossing at 4.05pm.
People on board called the stretch the ‘busiest of all’ and blamed the government for doing almost nothing to curb the perennial traffic jams.
“Merely declaring the stretch a ‘no demonstration zone’ won’t help unless authorities find a way out to the problem that is getting worse with each day,” said Ravindra Singh, a student and a daily commuter.
The entire stretch was being managed by three traffic sub-inspectors (TSI), six traffic head constables and a dozen home guards.