Month after inauguration,Eastern Expressway sees first traffic snarl

Less than a month after it was opened to traffic,the showpiece Eastern Freeway which has cut the commute time from south Mumbai to Chembur to less than 15 minutes saw its first traffic snarl on Monday morning.

Less than a month after it was opened to traffic,the showpiece Eastern Freeway which has cut the commute time from south Mumbai to Chembur to less than 15 minutes saw its first traffic snarl on Monday morning.

According to the traffic control room,the freeway,which stretches from Orange Gate to the Panjarpol junction near RK Studio in Chembur,suffered heavy congestion around 10 am during the peak hours. Rain slowed down traffic on the P DMello Road,leading to congestion on the signal-free,toll-free Eastern Freeway.

There was a backlog of nearly 15 to 20 minutes and the traffic started moving smoothly once the peak hour rush cleared around 11-11.30 am,said personnel manning the traffic control room.

Frustrated motorists posted warnings about the traffic on the freeway on social networking websites. According to them,the congestion stretched to nearly 3 to 4 km towards the Orange Gate ramp.

Dilip Kawathkar,spokesperson of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA),the agency in charge of the freeways construction,said they had not received any report about congestion.

Traffic officials and experts had foreseen this situation as the landings on both sides of the Eastern Freeway are much narrower than the signal-free road itself. Narrowing is a permanent,major problem. One thing that the authorities should do is make the entire P DMello Road a no-parking zone. There are many garages and transport companies operating on the road and many goods transporters park their vehicles there. If this illegal parking is cleared,at least one more lane will be available for the commuters to use. Otherwise,this will be a daily nuisance and the concept of the freeway will be lost, said Jitendra Gupta from the citizens transport committee.

Other experts said the freeway has been encouraging more people from areas such as Deonar and Vashi to use their cars,leading to a spurt in the number of vehicles and straining the inadequate infrastructure further. Infrastructure development should be in the direction of promoting public transport,they said.

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The 14-km first phase of the Eastern Freeway,which has a capacity to cater to at least 24,000 vehicles daily,was opened to traffic on June 14. The MMRDA had installed vehicle counters on the freeway for a week after it was opened.

We observed that about 19,000 to 22,000 vehicles were using the road on weekdays,while the traffic count was 10,000 to 13,000 per day on weekends. We are planning to put up vehicles counters again for the first two days of next week,and then again in the week after that for two days. This way,we plan to study the traffic usage on the freeway for the entire month, said a senior MMRDA engineer on condition of anonymity.

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Month after inauguration,Eastern Expressway sees first traffic snarl

Less than a month after it was opened to traffic,the showpiece Eastern Freeway  which has cut the commute time from south Mumbai to Chembur to less than 15 minutes  saw its first traffic snarl on Monday morning.

Less than a month after it was opened to traffic,the showpiece Eastern Freeway which has cut the commute time from south Mumbai to Chembur to less than 15 minutes saw its first traffic snarl on Monday morning.