Nearly a month and a half after TOI highlighted the traffic snarls on the busy flyover, civic body officials have confirmed that new joints are being sourced from a supplier based in Hyderabad or Haryana. The broken joints will be repaired or replaced on the entire stretch.Once arranged, the actual work of replacing joints will be conducted in the night and will be completed in 30 days.
Confirming the progress on the matter, Namdev Barapatre, PMC’s superintending engineer said, “We are working on sourcing extension joints and hope to procure the material in the next fifteen days. We will replace entire strips on the flyover.Work could take up to a month to complete and will be executed only during the convenience to vehicular traffic on the route.“
The extension joints, which have been broken since the past several months, force motorists to slow down while on the route to avoid damage to vehicles and prevent mishaps. Local traffic officials too have urged for a speedy replacement and have been following up on the issue with the civic body.
The damaged expansion joints on the flyover’s arms heading towards Pashan, Baner and Aundh, and on the stretch landing near ESquare are essentially steel structures covered with rubber. The joints’ primary function is to absorb the heat-induced expansion and contraction of construction material, vibrations and to hold the parts together.
If one vehicle slows down in peak hours, it has a cascading effect on vehicles trailing behind. A traffic jam develops in a matter of a few minutes with several vehicles slowing down at the problem spot. The situation worsens on rainy days when commuters slow down much before approaching the joints since they fear meeting with an accident.
Source : TOI
