CHAOTIC: Traffic congestion at IDPL crossroads near Balanagar is a common feature. — PHOTO: K. Ramesh Babu

HYDERABAD : Congestion in the morning, chaos in the evening! That is what happens to traffic movement on the nine-kilometre-long Bowenpally-Kukatpally stretch daily.

Day breaks with traffic snarls for commuters on this route. As dusk falls, the overcrowding graduates to traffic jams leaving people frustrated.

There are reasons galore for this upsetting experience every evening -- more vehicles, less road space, no road markings, heterogeneous traffic, presence of non-motorised traffic, lack of traffic signals at many intersections and inadequate police force. Compared to central parts of the city, the traffic police available in proportion to the number of commuters are less. And, that throws vehicle movement out of gear the moment one vehicle driver makes a small mistake.

Average speed

Going by the average speed of 14 kmph on city roads, a person should not take more than 38 minutes to travel from Bowenpally to Kukatpally or vice versa. "But it is taking over two hours to cover this stretch in the evening," says Padma of Bowenpally.

However, the entire stretch does not witness congestion. It begins at JNTU crossroads, which was designed years ago keeping in mind the much lesser number of vehicles then plying by that intersection. The road from Madhapur recently connected to this junction transformed the situation from bad to worse.

People coming from Jubilee Hills, Madhapur and Kondapur take this new road to reach Kukatpally and go towards Miyapur making traffic jam an order rather than an exception. "Widening the junction is the only solution but none seems to bother about it," a private firm employee Raju of Kukatpally feels.

Godrej crossroads

From here, traffic would flow smoothly only to get struck at the Godrej crossroads as a large number of trucks coming out from and going into the city try to overtake one another. Again, vehicles move a bit fast from here but are forced to a grinding halt at the Narsapur crossroads.

"One has to be prepared to get trapped at this junction at least for 15 to 20 minutes in the evening," a contractor Madhusudhan of Alwal says.

From this narrow junction to the Balanagar crossroads, traffic crawls from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. "I am a police officer but I avoid this route during those timings," says an Inspector. Even if one manages to travel past these two intersections, a similar agonising jam awaits at the Bowenpally `Y' junction, thanks to the narrow road space available.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail