Video survey of Mum-Agra highway to ease traffic

NASHIK: The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will soon start a video-graphic traffic survey of the 20-km stretch between Garware point and K K Wagh College on the Mumbai-Agra highway (NH 3) to bring an end to the perennial snarls.
Senior NHAI officials said they have received the approval of giving the contract for the video-graphic survey to traffic and transportation experts and the project would start at the earliest.The officials said they have already received suggestions about certain modifications on Garware Point-K K Wagh College stretch to put an end of the frequent traffic disruptions on the highway passing through the city.
While the entire 20-km stretch would be surveyed, the main focus will be on the traffic congestions caused at Dwarka and Indiranagar junctions. It has been two years that the highway has been widened. The 6.1-km flyover from Indiranagar jogging track to the Meenatai Thackeray stadium was thrown open for traffic in June 2013, considering that the vehicles on the highway can by-pass the city traffic through this elevated corridor.
Apart from the 6.1 km flyover on the highway, the concessionaires, who have been given the contract of widening the stretch from Pimpalgaon to Gonde, also constructed smaller flyovers at Garware point, Pathardi Phata, Lekha Nagar and Adgaon in the city and underpasses at Indiranagar, Ranenagar and Phalke Smarak.
However, all this have failed to put the brakes on the traffic snarls. Rather, the situation has become worse every passing day for the commuters who get stuck in congestions at the Dwarka and Indiranagar junctions regularly, particularly during peak hours. The highway authorities have taken various measures such as coming up with an ingress point at Gabriel company, making modifications at the Indiranagar underpass, reducing the size of the traffic island at Dwarka junction a couple of times and removing four others in front of the ramps of the flyover at the same junctions.
Since the local leaders have been vocal about the recurrent traffic snarls, it was decided to conducted a survey of the stretch to find out the average number of vehicles moving along the stretch and their respective destinations.
The NHAI officials said the new contractors would be experts in traffic and transportation. Once the survey is complete and guidelines issued by the company, the NHAI would implement those.
BJP MLA Devyani Pharande said, “We are against the design of the road widening and the construction of flyovers and underpasses. Motorists get stuck in snarlls at the Indiranagar underpass for 20 to 30 minutes. The situation is pathetic even at Indiranagar. We have called a meeting of NHAI, police and traffic officials for a traffic survey on the widened stretch to discuss all the problems.”