Why life’s a crawl at these four flyovers in Delhi

NEW DELHI: Meant to ease the commuter pains, flyovers, metro station and bus stop have led to high mobility corridors turning into choke points mainly because they have been crammed into the same congested space. This was evident when TOI visited four roadways in Munirka, Anand Vihar, Nehru Place and Hauz Khas.
The small entry/exit of the soon to become operational metro station, for instance, hardly elates potential train users in Munirka. In its vicinity are the massively encroached Munirka Village market and a carriageway of the flyover, and the 40-ft road shares space with a bus stop and haphazard autorickshaws parking.




“If a bus stops, the entire road is blocked for a few minutes,” complained Munirka resident Shyam Singh Tokas of the current situation. “Around 50 metres from the metro station entry is the makeshift parking point for Gramin Sewa vehicles. When the metro corridor starts functioning this month, these will obviously congregate at the entry point, turning the place into a nightmare.” For vehicles going towards the airport, this will only add to the problems caused by the ongoing RTR flyover construction.

Hauz Khas, like Munirka, remains clogged through the day. At the metro station there, soon to become an interchange point for the Yellow and Magenta lines, the authorities expect a considerable rise in footfall. Outer Ring Road there is already crowded with autorickshaws and Grameen Sewa vehicles, and the illegal hawkers that TOI found at the site only added to the obstructions on the road.

In east Delhi, the flyover near Anand Vihar metro station has a daily traffic volume of 1.5 lakh vehicles. Whatever little space is available is taken over by private buses, e-rickshaws, autorickshaws and vendors, with the bus stop near the flyover another congestion point. TOI observed buses stopping in the middle of road to allow people to board and disembark, further choking the road.

While the authorities talk about developing multi-modal transportation hubs, the lack of planning has made these intersections of different transport modes unmanageable. “How are bus stops and metro stations constructed at the mouths of flyovers?” asked Chetan Sharma, general secretary, Confederation of NCR RWAs.

Experts say that multi-utility zones should have been the way forward. But as Professor Sewa Ram of the transport planning department at the School of Planning and Architecture pointed out, “UTTIPEC created the concept of multi-utility zones, which provide space for informal sectors alongside bus stops, etc, but the lack of focus on the latter has led to this mess.” He argued that a tea vendor, for example, will always exist because of the demand at such spots but the streets design does not consider them.

Ram said that merely declaring places spaces as no-vending, no-parking zones doesn’t help. Space has to be provided based on utility and practicality. “A cobbler, for example, cannot be put at a place that doesn’t attract many people,” he explained. Having studied the problem, he was against roadside parking on major roads, recommending a ban on parking on the upper hierarchy roads, where the main aim is mobility.