Six-lane flyover to end Gondal Chowkdi nightmare

Rajkot: Travelling to temple town Somnath or Gir National Park via Rajkot is expected to become less cumbersome by 2020. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will be constructing a six-lane elevated flyover bridge over Gondal Chowkdi, one of the most frustrating traffic bottlenecks where travellers are stuck in jams for hours together.
The project announcement was made by union minister of state for road transport and highways Mansukh Mandaviya. He said that this will be Gujarat’s first bridge erected on single pier. It will have enough span beneath to allow smooth passage of vehicles going towards Rajkot city. “The bridge will be constructed considering the increase in vehicular traffic over the next 30 years,” Mandaviya said in a statement.

THE PROBLEM

The main reason for the chaos at Gondal Crossroads is merging of traffic from three Rajkot city roads and the private vehicles including trucks and buses going towards Junagadh, Somnath and Porbandar. The traffic from Gondal Road, 150 feet Ring Road and Aji Dam Road converges at this crossroad. Traffic jams have become an order of the day due to this ill-conceived planning.

Once the bridge is ready, traffic coming to Rajkot city won’t touch the highway and will move on the service road. For those coming from Ahmedabad, the passage till Gondal Crossroad will be smooth as there is an overbridge that connects Greenland Crossroad to Gondal Crossroad. However, as soon as one reaches Gondal Crossroad, the city traffic mixes with the highway traffic, which will be solved with the new overbridge.

Rajkot Builders Association (RBA) was at the forefront of making representation to the state and central governments to bring solution for this perennial problem.

RBA’s president Paresh Gajera said, “Majority of people working in Shapar industrial area and another industrial area being developed live in Rajkot. This adds to traffic during peak hours both in the morning and evening. The elevated corridor will ease this nagging problem.”

Municipal commissioner Banchha Nidhi Pani said, “A section of an existing bridge will be demolished to build the new one. This will be a six-lane bridge with enough space under it for city traffic.”