In peak traffic hours (which are 8 am to 12 pm and 4 pm to 9 pm) driving from Wakad Bridge to Geometric Circle Chowk, becomes a harrowing experience, particularly when negotiating the three chowks, Shivaji Chowk, Y Junction and Geometric Circle that fall on the route.
The 3-km drive from Wakad Naka to the IT Park which presently takes 45 minutes will be cut short with the new plan. Without getting into too much geometry, a senior traffic police inspector has drawn up a simple blueprint that will decongest the drive into the Hinjewadi IT Park where 80,000 people go to work. A concerted effort is going to be made to restore the three lane traffic the stretch was originally designed for, making it a no parking zone, clearing it of hawkers and electric poles, besides synchronising the signals and disallowing the right turn at Shivaji Chowk a critical junction. This will shrink the travel time on this stretch during peak traffic from 45 minutes to mere 10 minutes.
The proposal was submitted to the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) under whose jurisdiction the roads and the park come.
The plan is now to clear the road of these congesting factors. Hawkers have become the bane of Shivaji Chowk. Old overhead power lines will be replaced with underground cables and the electric poles that flank the road will be taken out.
For pedestrians, pavements will be built and the box-junctions planned will facilitate easier pedestrian crossings. At the trouble-spot — Shivaji Chowk — right turns will be banned from three ends, except for the traffic headed to Wakad Bridge from YJunction.
To smoothen the traffic flow, signals will be introduced at the Geometric Circle from where the traffic fans out into the three different phases of the IT park.
The number of vehicles on the road is increasing every day and there are no alternative approaches to the IT park. The increase in lanes combined with synchronised signals should help.
source: Pune mirror Oct’13
