Officials of the PWD (NH Wing), National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), and the city traffic police must conduct a joint inspection of Vyttila in Kochi and find a temporary solution to the mounting traffic snarls despite the commissioning of the six-lane flyover at the junction, Minister for Public Works P.A. Mohamed Riyas said at an online meeting on Sunday.
The PWD and other agencies concerned must also ready a comprehensive master plan to bring about seamless and signal-free traffic at the junction on the basis of a traffic study and redesign the junction in a scientific manner. Land acquisition too could be thought of, if needed. The projected manifold increase in traffic along the NH Bypass must be kept in mind while readying a scientific and sustainable master plan, he told officials.
The meeting was convened in the backdrop of increasing public unrest over traffic hold-ups at Vyttila and Kundannoor. The condition of roads at Kundannoor Junction is particularly bad owing to undulations over paver blocks laid by the PWD on the Maradu and Thevara sides of the flyover. Pedestrians at the two junctions too have found the going tough as footpaths were dismantled.
Mr. Riyas directed officials to consider the proposals in a report submitted by the PWD (NH Wing) in 2019 on redesigning the bottlenecked junctions.
Mayor M. Anilkumar, Hibi Eden, MP; P.T. Thomas, MLA, District Collector S. Suhas, District Police Chief C.H. Nagaraju, and RTO P.M. Shabeer attended the meeting.
The meeting took special note of the fact that buses alone operated around 5,000 trips daily from the Vyttila Mobility Hub. Traffic congestion is worst on the northern side of the junction, where vehicles from Palarivattom, wanting to turn to S.A. Road and towards Thripunithura and the mobility hub jostle for space on the bottlenecked portion between the flyover and a row of shops that stand in the way of vehicles wanting to take free-left turn.
Incidentally, the PWD has not paid heed to repeated requests from the police to lessen the circumference of the roundabout it built beneath the flyover at Vyttila, and to chip off traffic islands that protrude into the carriageway of vehicles.
