The traffic police on Tuesday turned Subhash Chowk into a four-way junction, to ease the worsening traffic snarls between Subhash and Vatika Chowks on Sohna Road, where ongoing work on an elevated road project is contributing to congestion.

Instead of a two-way street, the four-way intersection will facilitate vehicles to make right turns at the junction towards Sector 47 and Hero Honda Chowk, respectively.

This, traffic police officials said, will help reduce the number of commuters making the U-turns, thereby, reducing the severity and duration of snarls on the stretch between the two intersections.

Traffic movement between Vatika Chowk and Rajiv Chowk on Sohna Road is likely to remain affected till early 2022, due to the construction work on the Sohna elevated road. As a result of the construction work, traffic diversions are being enforced regularly.

Earlier this month, the traffic police had also created a new cut, which allowed commuters to pass through the barricaded stretch between Central Park 2 and JMD Megapolis, and take a turn to head directly towards sectors 49 and 50. As a result, travel time was reduced by more than 10 minutes.

“However, the measure was not enough to make a substantial dent in the duration of congestion on Sohna Road. Hence, we have decided to open up Subash Chowk and to reduce the number of vehicles, which earlier had to travel further down Sohna and make a U-turn,” a traffic police officer familiar with the matter said.

Himanshu Garg, deputy commissioner of police (traffic), did not respond to messages seeking comment on the issue.

However, earlier in the day, Garg had tweeted via his official handle, “Subhash Chowk intersection has been restored as a normal 4 way intersection. Jersey barriers restricting right turning movements have been removed. Hope this will ease congestion at various U-turns on Sohna Road.” 

He also invited citizens to share their feedback with the traffic police.

The ₹1,300-crore Sohna elevated project has been envisioned to provide seamless traffic flow between Rajiv Chowk and Sohna, by providing a signal-free commute.

It is also supposed to ease the commute towards Alwar. It is expected to reduce the travel time between Rajiv Chowk and Alwar to under two hours. At present, it takes almost three hours to cover the 120-kilometre stretch.

First Published: Jul 17, 2019 04:45 IST