The National Highways Authority of India’s (NHAI) Pune division has identified at least 15 locations across the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) and Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) jurisdictions where infrastructure deficiencies and traffic bottlenecks need to be addressed as a priority.
NHAI would work with the PMC, PCMC and PMRDA to examine each location separately and determine the required intervention. “At some locations, the solution could be improvement of a service road, while at others it may require redesigning a junction, removing bottlenecks, improving turning arrangements, providing better entry and exit points or strengthening coordination with the traffic police. We do not want isolated works to be undertaken without looking at the entire traffic movement. During peak hours, vehicles from the numerous housing societies enter the service roads and then merge with highway traffic, creating long queues. Better junction planning and service-road connectivity are urgently needed. During office hours, the service roads are packed with vehicles, and traffic from housing societies, shops and the highway all converge at the same points. A coordinated solution involving NHAI and the civic authorities is necessary.”
Even a short distance can take 30 to 40 minutes.
The idea is to prepare a location-wise plan and take up the required infrastructure improvements with the concerned civic agency,” the official said. Mandar Jadhav, a resident from Warje, said, “The problem is not limited to the main highway. Another resident, Kiran Pisal from Ahmednagar Road, said, “The Ahmednagar Road corridor has seen massive residential and commercial development, but the supporting road infrastructure has not kept pace.
