Urban News

The Deccan Chronicle  03.09.2010

Sept. 2: Hyderabad city has over 25 lakh registered vehicles on its roads, and every day about 500 new vehicles are added. The road network in the core city, though, is only about 11.62 per cent of the city area, which is totally inadequate to ensure free flow of vehicular traffic.

Traffic jams at various places in the city are, therefore, inevitable and citizens are victims of many such blockages as they move around the city daily. The solution suggested by the Hyderabad traffic police is for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation to construct at least 27 flyovers at various busy junctions.

However, urban development, traffic and transport experts say flyovers are not some kind of a magic wand that will permanently fix the traffic problem. They may ease traffic congestion for a couple of years, but the more road space there is, the quicker it will fill up. As cities grow both spatially and in terms of population, the problem is really how to move increasingly large numbers of people over longer distances in comparative comfort and at a reasonable cost.

What is required is a comprehensive, integrated mobility plan which should be a combination of roads, flyovers, foot overbridges, parking space, pedestrianisation, and, most crucially, strengthening of mass public transport systems like the MMTS, introduction of alternative transport systems like the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) and discouraging use of personal vehicles during peak hours in select high traffic density corridors. If this is not done, hundreds of crores of rupees of public money will be spent on construction of flyovers without achieving the desired results.

Experts say proper city planning is also required which would, for instance, shift economic activities to extended areas of the city to reduce the population in the overcrowded core city area.

Permission for building high-rises and commercial complexes in lanes and by-lanes should not be given, as it only leads to further congestion. The vast open lands in surrounding municipalities could be utilised to reduce the load in the core city.

If new flyovers are built, they should be designed better than the existing ones. Many existing flyovers in the city have a carriage-width of just one-and-a-half lanes on each side, which is inadequate to take the load and results in the ridiculous sight of traffic jams on flyovers, which are meant to relieve traffic jams. Also, flyovers should have more than four arms, providing ramps to get on and off from four different points and not just one entry and one exit point as is the case with existing flyovers.

Traffic and transport expert, Mr S. Nagabhushan Rao, says a proper study of traffic flow pattern at junctions must be made before flyovers are constructed, and they should have at least three lanes on each side. But flyovers alone will not solve the traffic congestion problem.

Traffic expert and professor from JNTU, Mr P.R. Bhanu Murthy, agrees the current design of flyovers is no good. “In just five to six years, these narrow flyovers have reached their maximum capacity. You can see a long row of vehicles moving at snail’s pace on the flyovers during peak hours. We need flyovers, but sufficiently wide ones with inter-change facility.”

Professor Murthy said the state government should wait for a comprehensive study commissioned by HMDA before making any decisions.

The GHMC chief engineer, Mr Dhan Singh, said the corporation usually does not plan a flyover unless the minimum traffic volume is 10,000 passenger car units (PCU) per hour at a junction from one direction during peak hours. The GHMC will not take up construction of any flyover unless the traffic study is done and feasibility reports are submitted.

The additional commissioner of police (traffic), Mr C.V. Anand, said the suggestion for construction of 27 flyovers was made by his predecessors. There are many things the government can do, but it must put the needs of the people before those of vested interests and interested lobbies if it is to succeed. It can also study innovations in other countries with similar traffic densities and conditions which have successfully overcome their problems.