Monday proved to be a mixed bag for motorists in the city. While police officials resolved the complicated traffic tangle to a large extent at Lakdikapul and adjoining areas by fine tuning and restoring the earlier traffic scheme, motorists were forced to slowdown to a crawl on the key Punjagutta-Begumpet stretch due to the ongoing pipeline work at the bridge near Kochar Apartments.
Traffic jams at Lakdikapul and surrounding junctions eased after dispensing with the practice of channelling motorists through Ravindra Bharathi junction, Additional CP (Traffic) C.V. Anand said. “We adopted a trial-and-error method to find a suitable solution to this complex traffic problem. Fine tuning and implementing the old traffic scheme proved to be the best option,” he observed adding that Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation was taking up the required infrastructural changes.
Motorists still have to take the newly inaugurated Road-over-Bridge (RoB) to go towards Masab Tank and the old RoB to go towards Khairatabad.
But traffic coming from Ravindra Bharathi junction and Ranga Reddy District Collectorate will be stopped alternately to allow vehicles to go towards the respective bridges, he said.
Traffic island at the junction would be reduced along with realigning the dividers near Ayodhya junction. “Traffic volume going towards Masab Tank is more than that going towards Nirankari Bhavan, so more road width will be provided for motorists using the new Road-over-Bridge,” Mr. Anand explained. The junction would also be included under new Hyderabad Traffic Integrated Management System, he said.
Traffic between Punjagutta and Begumpet was forced to slowdown due to the Water Board taking up shifting a water pipeline near Kochar Apartments.
The work was completed by 4 p.m. but traffic came to a standstill due to the spill-over effect, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) P.V.S. Ramakrishna said.
“We were under the impression that the logjam was caused by the fleet of buses that came to the area, but the spill-over effect was the main reason for the jam,” he said adding that remaining bottlenecks on the route had to be removed to address the traffic congestion here.
