Gridlock in GK-II, C R Park

NEW DELHI: An already delicate traffic situation, which often leads to a gridlock in Greater Kailash II, Chittaranjan Park and Alaknanda areas during peak hours, got compounded on Saturday with the opening of the Sarita Vihar underpass. There was a sudden surge in traffic volume around noon that lasted for a few hours. These were vehicles that were either going towards Noida or returning from there through the underpass.With the DND toll charges being hiked, the underpass has become even more attractive.
Traffic cops suspect that a lot of traffic was from other areas, like Saket and Malviya Nagar, which wanted to avoid the Nehru Place-Modi Mill route and was checking out the way to the underpass.
The route was through Tughlaqabad Extension, a congested area. But what made the situation worse was the fact that some schools in the Alaknanda area had their Christmas celebrations and other functions. The visitors to these functions had parked their cars on the main road. The school buses too occupied a lot of carriage space. As a result, the traffic slowed down and at the traffic signal near Mandakini Apartments began branching out to go through Chittaranjan Park or Kalkaji, a perfect recipe for a gridlock.
As cars began turning into the lanes of Greater Kailash II to escape the logjam, traffic began stalling there too. Soon, there was a huge tailback in both directions.
An exasperated Samik Dutta, who was returning to Chittaranjan Park from Noida with his wife, and got caught in the jam in front of Alaknanda Market, shook his head in despair. “What’s the point of opening this underpass? Yes, I did reach Noida in half-an-hour in the morning, but the return journey has taken ages,” he said. Residents of GK-II who thought Chittaranjan Park would give them easy acces to Outer Ring Road were both disappointed and inconvenienced.
Outer Ring Road is often chock-a-bloc with vehicles around noon, and the Metro construction has led to a worsening of the situation. Access to this road from Chittaranjan Park is through Bipin Chandra Pal Avenue which has cars parked on both sides. Showing a distinct lack of foresight and bad planning, officials have recently installed a new speedbreaker on this road, in front of a market, just a few metres from the traffic signal. The traffic slows down here, leading to very slow egress and an annoying tailback, right at the mouth of the road which has a number of banks.
Traffic cops, who seemed to have been caught on the wrong foot, are now waiting for Monday when the volume will go up dramatically. Unless some steps are taken urgently to manage this traffic flow, things may go horribly wrong.