: M. Siva Ram, an entrepreneur from the city, who was on his way to the Gannavaram airport to catch a flight, was caught in a piquant situation recently when his car got stuck in the traffic at Ramavarappadu. When he phoned the airline to inform about the inevitable delay, its representative told him that many of the passengers had not yet arrived due to the same issue and the flight would not take off until a minimum number of them report for boarding.
Such unexpected delays in reaching the airport have become the order of the day for air passengers due to heavy traffic in the city, particularly the stretch of the National Highway between Ramavarappadu Ring and Nidamanuru which turned a bottleneck for the city, NH and Inner Ring Road traffic.
In fact, the opening of IRR traffic into the NH recently has only doubled the traffic congestion on the stretch during peak hours.
“We expected this situation much before the opening of IRR. This narrow stretch has been a problem for quite some time and the addition of more vehicles has made it worse. During peak hours in the morning and evening it has become dangerous to ride or even cross the road,” said K. Sainath, a resident of Ramavarappadu.
Local cabbies charging more
“Local cabbies are charging more citing the traffic between Benz Circle and Nidamanuru and the only option left to reach the airport in time is starting at least one hour before reporting time which was not the case in the past,” Mr. Siva Ram said.
The four-kilometre stretch is adjoined by a number of commercial complexes, hyper markets, motor vehicle showrooms, function halls, schools and colleges on both sides.
“The road should be either widened or the Benz Circle flyover must be extended up to Nidamanuru so that highway and airport traffic goes out of the city at ease,” said K. Purushotham Rao of Enikepadu.
