The year when the city slowed down

For example,when the traffic moves at a snail’s pace on the Jangali Maharaj and Fergusson College roads,the cause of these jams can be traced to the bottleneck at Garware bridge,and also at Sancheti Corner and Simla office chowk. There is another jam at Sambhaji bridge,which is the next passage for traffic.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (traffic) Vishwas Pandhare said,“Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad areas have a large number of bridges as the Mutha and Mula rivers flow through the city. These bridges are old and cannot support today’s traffic volume. This leads to snarls on connected roads. During monsoon,the problem worsens and traffic moves at an even slower pace.”

Apart from these old bridges,Pandhare said the other type of bottlenecks are at junctions such as the Engineering College Square,University Square,Nal Stop,Balbharati Square,Shastri Square,Chaphekar chowk,Khadki chowk,Simla Office Square,Hinjewadi bridge junction on the highway and the Swargate Junction — where traffic from various roads converges.

“The traffic flow at these squares has grown manifold,but their carrying capacity remains the same. If a change is made at one of these points,the traffic flow through that point goes up. But it subsequently clogs the next junction,which has the same old carrying capacity. In the absence of a strong public transport system,the problem is going to worsen day by day. Almost 27,000 vehicles are added to the city traffic every month. City roads are not going to be able to handle such a flow. Road widening is just a temporary solution and is not at all sustainable. We can not just copy the automobile technology from the West; we will also have to learn things about the transport policies,” said Pandhare.

He added that the police have been requesting the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to set up signals at two places on Baner Road. “The uninterrupted traffic flow comes in at the university junction and causes jams. If the signals are installed on the way,this traffic will come in parts and ease the burden at the junctions that follow. This shows that structural changes made at just a few of the places actually worsens the traffic problem,” he said.

Civic activist from Pedestrian First,Prashant Inamdar,said his forum has been repeatedly telling the police and the PMC that widening of roads has to be consistent. “JM Road and FC Road were made one-way and the traffic flow in one direction has doubled. Have they made adequate changes at the Garware Bridge and Simla Office Square? The increase in traffic flow is causing bottlenecks and traffic jams,” he said.

“We should attribute this problem to the failed system of public transport and conducive environment for non-motorised ways of transport not being in place,” he added.

Police also said they have been forced to make small changes on the roads as short-term solutions. Since November last year,Pune police’s traffic control branch has implemented one-sided parking (also called alternate P1-P2 parking) on as many as 40 roads. During the same time,no-parking zones have been declared on over 60 roads. Most of these are approaching roads or bylanes connecting to arterial roads.