Wakad : Resident observes

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.

1. 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 .
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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
5. 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.
6. 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.  
7. 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.