The IT sub urb of Pune is now getting strangulated because of the lack of foresight on part of Pune’s town planners( If at all they exist). In the last few months the traffic sitaution has gone from bad to worse. The hours 0815-1130 and 1730-2030 are like nightmare on road. The cars wriggle @ < 10km/hr and there seems little done by administration to improve things. They have only added more copson this route and they have little capacity to match the growing vehicular beelines on this route.
It takes more than 35 minutes to cover the 3 km stretch from Wakad flyover to IT park and frustrates the hell out of people working in this Area . There are some steps which can be done immediately to imrove the situation. These steps if not effected immediately will lead to disastrous traffic snarls when about a lakh or more professionals( TCS- 30,000Developers, Tech Mahindra 20,000, IBM around 10,000, Infy 30,000more, 10,000 Siemens, Wipro and some biotech companies) join offices in this IT park in an year or Nano hits the road . The time to act is NOW.
- Commercial Fuel filling at HP terminal. Stop it : The HP terminal has 10 or 15 buses lined up for filling diesel . Also there are trucks with cannisters for filling diesel( Probably for malls, commercial establishments). This leads to 5-7 LCVs waiting on road to refuel. This creates a bottle neck and throttles the traffic. Refuelling of commercial vehicles on this pump during peak hours need to be stopped immediately .
- Making the area near KPIT a no parking/hawking zone : Currently the 7 seater autos line up in front of KPIT and ply from there to phase III. Their parking needs to be moved to some sub lane close to Mezzanine or by creating a sub lane at the start of Wakad flyover . This would entail more driving space to passenger vehicles. Also the hawkers selling fish/ vegetables occupy half the road thereby causing a vehicular bottleneck.
- Creating a Auto / Bus route between Wakad flyover to All phases : This will ensure that people have steady public transport from bridge to all important phases of Hinjewadi. This will ease off no. of personal vehicles in to the IT park.
- Creating a parking space close to Wakad flyover : People should be able to park their private vehicles for a fee and take public transport from there to the office. This will encourage people to use public transport and save fuel
- Demolish Illegal construction on road side : There are a lot of illegal commercial ventures started on both sides of the road. They need to be demolished to widen the road . This is needed to be done right now. Else the park will not be able to meet the demands of expanding industry.
- Open 2 more exit routes from Hinjewadi : One exit route to open near Balewadi sports complex ( To cater for people commuting from Kothrud, Bavdhan, Pashan etc to Hinjewadi. The second route opening near Wakad Police station to cater for people coming from Pimple Saudagar, Pimpri, Chinchwad etc. Currently there is only one entry/exit route . This is grossly inadequate for more than 2 lakh vehicles which ferry in this IT hub.
- Develop good cycling tracks to office : A large population of IT professionals working in Hinjevadi live in adjoining areas ( <10km from Office). A large majority of them are turning obese because od the nature of their work ( Desk work for the whole day ). Currently , the roads are not safe for cyclists and thus they have to drive their fuel guzzling cars. This is bad for economy and also for environment and personal health.
Rakesh Kadarla said,
September 2, 2008 at 10:53 am
This blog truly points out the traffic woes of people commuting to and from Hinjewadi. I sincerely believe in, “Act Now”, because we can only build a future on the existing present. If we let the present be in a state of chaos, our future would be in the dark ! We need to identify the minute details of the problem and act on it. I hope the authorities are looking at the situation, and have a possible solution up their sleeves.
Sanjeev Sharma said,
September 10, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Very well stated. The points you have mentioned to decongest traffic are to the point and will really help.. The traffic is a nightmare.. really painful.
Tamal said,
September 15, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Hi Arun – I still feel there is one point that needs to addressed and that is “Road Ettiquettes”. Even today when the traffic and the jam thereby is at its peak, people instead of having patience start running all over mostly blocking the traffic from the opposite lane. In developed countries, when the traffic lights go off one should see how delicately and in organized fashion the cars manage to cross the lights… no honking nothing and I am a witness to many such occassions. Honking in the developed countries is almost equivalent to abuse. I wonder who taugh all these those guys living in the developed countries, people have to introspect themselves and try to see how they can minimised trouble to “OTHERS’ at the cost of their comfort.
arunpurohit said,
September 15, 2008 at 6:26 pm
One way probably to address it is to levy heavy fines on all traffic violation. This should be authenticated by putting CCTV at all major road junctions . One can rewind/zoom down to locate actual violators even offl ine. THe violation tickets need to be sent directly to person’s address or via email ,allowing online payments ..
Probably , our civic study also needs to be revisited.
Tamal said,
September 16, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Hi Arun – How many junctions are we talking about ? Let’s take an example of the Wakad Road that leads to Hinjewadi. There are possibly 3 junctions (Vishalnagar, Kaspatevasti,Wakad Thergaon Rd.) Let’s say we do provide the CCTV as these places, how do we control the traffic in between (not at these junctions). I still feel that people have to inculcate mannerism in themselves, I think it is more of looking at the source of paradigm shift and the not the paradigm shift itself. Yes, at the same it becomes imperative to formulate a system that can be related to an individual’s daily deeds where-in a history check would be done before anything can be executed. I have found that “Honesty” is what is lacking and degrading day by day in this country because there are shortage of many things and demand by Many. We missed the population target this time and I find no NEWS channel coming up with full swing to curb this issue of controlling population, all these guys talk are about blasts, some minister’s clothing ettiquettes….
arunpurohit said,
September 26, 2008 at 9:22 am
There is a saying in Sanskrit which when translated means – ” THere is no harmony without fear ” Here the way we penalize the offender leaves a lot desired .. Say for an offender like Anil Nanda ( Grandson of an admiral who crushed 5 men under his BMW) paltry traffic fines dont mean anything. With economic might he can but witnesses, police and all. He did go to some of the best schools possible.
What I admire about US is that there are non monetary fines like community service. Every minor traffic offender may be made to do supervised community service of say 50 hours staggered over a month. This may be used to clean up streets, dig trenches to pave way for new roads etc or may be catch other similar offenders. This will generate a lot of resources to complete public projects on time. Also dignity of labor will be restored.