The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : I-Max viewing, high-density traffic chaos

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Oct 04, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

I-Max viewing, high-density traffic chaos

By Marri Ramu

Traffic bottlenecks at Imax theatre, near Necklace Road have become a common sight. Photo: P.V. Sivakumar

HYDERABAD, OCT. 3. If the I-Max theatre has many specialities to its credit, the road in front of it has a peculiarity. On a holiday while all roads in the city get decongested, this road transforms into a zone of traffic snarls!

With no policemen to regulate traffic movement, the stretch between the theatre's two gates on either side of the road is witnessing frequent traffic congestion, especially on a holiday, more during evenings. Visitors to the theatre and autorickshaw drivers parking their vehicles haphazardly on the road further compound the problem.

No care for `no parking'

Despite installation of `No parking' boards on either side of the road, none seems to be noticing them. In fact, cars, three-wheelers and two-wheelers are parked right under these boards. Though theatre's security guards guide visitors to park their vehicles at the designated parking lot, they confine themselves to ensuring no vehicles are parked in front of the theatre.

They turn a blind eye to the large number of vehicles, apparently belonging to people visiting the multiplex, parked on other side of the road.

As visitors cross over the median on foot from one end of the road to the other, commuters coming from Mint Compound end and Necklace Road rotary side are forced to come to a grinding halt as soon as they enter this stretch. Some autorickshaw drivers deliberately slow down vehicles at the openings on the divider to pick up passengers worsening the situation.

`Little' improvement

Sources said the theatre management had sought permission from the Government for construction of another theatre on the same premises. Going by the rapid growth in city's vehicular traffic, increasing number of visitors to the theatre and hawkers, the road is slowly, but surely, becoming a centre of congestion.

"We are convening a meeting with the theatre management soon to set things right. On weekends we are booking hundreds of cases on those parking vehicles on that road, but there is very little improvement," the Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Tejdeep Kaur Menon, said. The theatre management had been advised to increase parking space inside.

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