Many corridors that were recently developed under the City Road Improvement Project (CRIP) here have become saturated, with the passenger car unit (PCU) per hour at five busy intersections surpassing the 2012 projections.
In many carriageways developed as per international standards, it is a bumper-to-bumper ride during morning and evening peak hours. With the 42-km CRIP roads offering a comfortable ride, motorists opt for them instead of other badly maintained roads.
The mounting vehicle population, overdependence on personalised modes of transport, failure of the public transport system to live up to the expectations of commuters, and lack of a mass rapid transit system are cited as the main reasons for the roads getting clogged.
Kowdiar, Vellayambalam, Pattom, Bakery Junction, Thampanoor, and East Fort are the intersections on the main corridors developed under CRIP where the projections made in 2002 have been exceeded. Anil Kumar Pandala, Project Director, CRIP, said the intersections at Vellayambalam, Pattom, and East Fort needed urgent intervention to ease traffic woes.
At Vellayambalam, where vehicular traffic is regulated through roundabout and signals, the PCU per hour touched 19,000 in July this year. The projection was 10,509 PCU per hour in 2002, and 14,123 in 2012.
At East Fort, the PCU per hour has touched 15,661; at Thampanoor and Bakery Junction, 20,164; and at Pattom 23,852. Except for Kowdiar Junction, traffic at all the other five intersections has surpassed the PCU per hour projections for 2012.
Intersections where the PCU per hour is up to 4,000 can be managed with roundabouts, as at the Vellayambalam junction. For PCU in the range of 4,000 to 10,000, traffic signals are needed. Grade separators such as flyovers and underpass are used when the PCU crosses 10,000 per hour.
Need for flyoversVellayambalam and Pattom need a flyover. At Vellayambalam, the slicing of the roundabout can provide a temporary solution. At Pattom, a flyover has been proposed as part of the elevated MRTS.
Mr. Pandala said 15 per cent of the traffic from Thampanoor would reduce once the Melepazhavangady flyover was commissioned.
At East Fort, a grade separator cannot be considered in view of security concerns. “The solution is to decentralise the bus operations from East Fort and decongest the roads for the smooth flow of traffic,” he said.
