Road-widening in city hits roadblock

Vijayawada: The City has no scope for road-widening is a reality going by the opposition from people when officials attempted to widen roads near Durga temple during Pushkaralu. With no expansion of roads for decades and rise in number of vehicles, it will be hard to imagine fate of traffic.

Slow pace of traffic on congested roads is making it another ‘Old City’ of Hyderabad with possibility of all development will be happening in Amaravati capital city in future. Government may not go beyond the wishes of house owners who don’t want to raze their buildings for the sake of development.

The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation has a master plan prepared in 2006. Though the plan recommended widening of about 20 roads, the authorities succeeded in widening only two roads so far. If the pace of works under the master plan progress this way, it may be easy to comprehend how fast the development would be.

According to a city planning department official, YV Rao Hospital Road and road opposite Hotel DV Manor need to be developed next. He also informed that Vijayawada East Railway Booking Road and Mahanadu Road were successfully widened recently.

Every year new vehicles are hitting city roads which became too congested to accommodate traffic. About 85,400 vehicles are plying in the city. When transport vehicles that pass through the city are taken into consideration, the number of vehicles crosses one lakh every day. Goods carriages and auto-rickshaws top the list of vehicles in the city.

The city has 38,500 goods carriages and 17,300 autos. The educational institutes’ buses account for 1,770 followed by stage carriers 1,830, maxi cabs 1,400, contract carriages 370 and private service vehicles 185. The list goes on without any growth in roads.

A city traffic police official is of the view that bypass road is only solution to ease traffic to some extent. The transport vehicles could be prevented from entering the city by bypass road. Once flyovers completed, it helps in increased movement of traffic, he feels.

At present, traffic in main places is moving slow during peak hours. A car started at Currency Nagar will take 40 minutes to reach Radio Station in the evening. A city bus will require an hour to reach KR Market from Gollapudi in the morning hours. A Garuda luxury bus from Pandit Nehru Bus Station leaves at 10 pm may not reach Hyderabad as per schedule. It has to cross hurdles on its way at Rajiv Park, KR Market, Srinivasa Mahal, Chittinagar, Tunnel and Gollapudi. The travel time has been increasing for the vehicles plying in the city.

To be precise, the roads are hardly in a position to cope with the heavy traffic in the city, especially during morning and evening rush hours.

How to reach destinations is a tough task for everyone these days. Public transportation has suffered a lot. Buses were not moving fast as expected by commuters. Bikers are first in the race to make way from irregular traffic though they suffer injuries in the process some times. Passengers travel by autos are not happy as sultry weather makes them sweat a lot to reach destination.

If roads are not allowed to widen further to accommodate more vehicles, the city will turn into another old city of Hyderabad, says a senior journalist.

By Noor Shaik