Flyover construction plagues road traffic

The first part of the flyover from Noble Hospital (Magarpatta) to Pune-Solapur Road will be four-laned,295-metre-long and 16.1-metre wide,while the second part on the Pune-Solapur Road will be two-laned,463-metre-long and 7.9-metre wide. The flyover had been approved by the PMC’s standing committee at Rs12.45 crore in 2008 and May 2009 was the initial date set for its completion.

“For more than a month,the Hadapsar-Magarpatta route has been a one-way road because of flyover work. When ambulances and patients need to reach Noble Hospital and Sahyadri Hospital in times of emergency it becomes very difficult to take a long route and reach the main gate. Even at times there are huge traffic snarls,which make it tough for commuters to negotiate the road,” Pratik Salvi,a student of S P College,living in Kharadi said.

Local corporator Rajlaxmi Bhosale,however,denied any major inconvenience because of the construction work. “There is hardly any inconvenience. There is smooth traffic throughout the day,but it becomes a little chaotic for some time in the evening when employees of various offices return home in large numbers. But it does not last long. The flyover project is actually meant to ease traffic in the area and hence,a little inconvenience for some days should be fine.”

A resident from Hadapsar,Shankar Shinde,said,“Even though we can understand that there was no alternative before the authorities than creating a diversion,commuters are facing a lot of inconvenience. There has already been an inordinate delay in constructing the flyover and the civic authorities should now speed it up before citizens lose patience.”

Additional city engineer Vivek Kharwadkar said,“The heavy traffic had initially caused problems in construction. The work has been on for more than two years,but we hope to complete it in the next one-two months.”