With chaos, traffic hold-ups and accidents involving motorists and pedestrians becoming the norm at Vyttila Junction, the demand is rife that the Public Works department (NH wing) live up to its three-year-old promise of redeveloping the junction that is the biggest in the State, to ensure safe, streamlined flow of vehicles.
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The decade-old assurance by PWD (Roads wing) to widen the Vyttila-Kunnara Park stretch of the Vyttila-Pettah road as a four-lane corridor, and of widening the Kaniyampuzha-Eroor road through which hundreds of buses and other vehicles enter the Vyttila Mobility Hub (VMH), too remains on paper. This has led to motorists and pedestrians having a nightmarish time crossing the junction, where chaos persists even after a flyover – the design of which invited considerable flak – was commissioned in early 2021.
“The Vyttila Junction’s redevelopment ought to have been included in the Kochi Corporation’s master plan, since the PWD (NH wing) has failed to finalise a comprehensive plan to decongest the junction. Traffic quagmires at the junction will worsen when more number of long-distance buses operated by KSRTC begin calling at the VMH, once the agency is handed over three acres at the mobility hub,” said Vyttila Division councillor Sunitha Dixon, who is also chairperson of the civic agency’s Public Works Standing Committee.
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The hub, which has a bus terminal, metro station and Water Metro terminal, is being preened up using CSML funds. Its funds will also hopefully come in handy to relocate a transformer that has been obstructing the free-left turn from Kaniyampuzha Road towards Thripunithura. “Still, problems will persist in the form of buildings that hamper smooth left turn from Palarivattom side towards VMH, and the unusually-wide medians beneath the flyover whose right-angled edges the PWD failed to dismantle despite its assurance over two years ago,” she added.
Kundannoor Junction
The alleged inaction by the PWD is in stark contrast with the efforts under way to redevelop Kundannoor Junction that is located hardly four km south of Vyttila on the Edappally-Aroor NH bypass. The Revenue department would shortly acquire 40 cents there to widen the narrow bellmouths of the junction.
“The KIIFB has agreed to fund the project, for which survey stones have been laid to commence land acquisition. This will be done after a social-impact-assessment (SIA) study and the publishing of relevant notifications. The right-angled free-left turn from Vyttila towards Thripunithura is among the bottlenecks that have been holding up vehicles,” said K. Babu, Tripunithura MLA. He further sought urgent steps to widen the Kaniyampuzha road and the Vyttila-Kunnara Park road.
Responding to the issue, Kochi Corporation sources said that redevelopment of Vyttila Junction ought to be carried out by the PWD (NH wing) and the National Highways Authority of India, with technical help from the National Transportation Planning and Research Centre which had readied a project in this regard over a year ago.