Ashram snarls may end at long last as flyover reopens | Latest News Delhi - Hindustan Times
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Ashram snarls may end at long last as flyover reopens

Mar 07, 2023 12:13 AM IST

New Delhi Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday inaugurated the extension of the Ashram flyover — a key stretch expected to allow travellers a signal-free ride between Noida and Lajpat Nagar, marking the end of three-and-a-half years of construction work at the Capital’s busiest intersection and freeing commuters of a traffic headache that kept them stuck in a seemingly unending spiral of blockades, diversions, and snarls

New Delhi Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday inaugurated the extension of the Ashram flyover — a key stretch expected to allow travellers a signal-free ride between Noida and Lajpat Nagar, marking the end of three-and-a-half years of construction work at the Capital’s busiest intersection and freeing commuters of a traffic headache that kept them stuck in a seemingly unending spiral of blockades, diversions, and snarls.

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Both carriageways of the extension were opened for light vehicles around 6.30pm on Monday, unshackling the intersection of Ring Road and Mathura Road of snaking traffic that has plagued it since January 2 this year, when the flyover was shut for the final stretch of constructions.

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What that meant was a sight, even during rush hour on Monday evening, that Delhi had long since forgotten; a green strip, instead of the usual deep red, on Google Maps.

During the noon inauguration, Kejriwal underlined that the extension (which links the Ashram flyover and the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway) will help commuters on Ring Road bypass three traffic signals.

“Trips along this stretch, which took several hours and involved long-winding snarls, especially during rush hour, will get much easier now,” said Kejriwal.

However, the chief minister made it a point to apologise for the troubles that beset commuters during the lengthy construction period.

“People faced difficulties during the construction period, for which we express regret. But now, the stretch will be very beneficial for the commuters,” he said.

Trucks and buses will, for now, be disallowed from using the extension, said Delhi Police officers and public works department (PWD) officials, adding that some minor work on the stretch is still to be wrapped up.

“This 1.42km extension will also be opened for heavy vehicles once the remaining work is complete,” said Kejriwal.

Monday afternoon’s inauguration drew the curtains on a series of infrastructure projects aimed at decluttering Ashram intersection, construction work which only compounded the miseries of the roughly 350,000 vehicles that use the key crossing every day.

Authorities began tinkering with fixes for the crossing from December 2019, when PWD started construction work on an underpass along Mathura Road that was aimed at helping commuters travelling between Bhogal and New Friends Colony circumvent the intersection.

However, work on the underpass was delayed over and over again thanks to a multitude of reasons — lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic, curbs during pollution spikes in winter, as well as administrative ineptitude, all of which together pushed back an initial December 2020 deadline, with eight postponements overall. The underpass was finally opened on March 22.

Overlapping with that chaos was flyover extension, work on which began in June 2020, and was supposed to end in a year. Instead, the extension took 33 months to complete.

The nightmare for commuters, as well as residents of nearby Siddharth Extension, Friends Colony, Jangpura and Maharani Bagh, among others, hit a crescendo this January, when the flyover was shut entirely, as officials began linking it with the extension.

This closure squeezed not just the saturated intersection, but also multiplied the traffic pressure on lanes and colony roads in nearby areas.

Even after the inauguration, minor niggles are likely to remain for the next few weeks.

A senior PWD official overseeing the project said the extension opening will not benefit commuters heading from Sarai Kale Khan towards Ashram, since the up-ramp has not yet been completed.

“It’ll take between 30 and 45 days to complete the Sarai Kale Khan ramp and shift high-tension cables,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

Special commissioner of police (traffic) SS Yadav said that the flyover will help in balancing the volume of traffic. “It has balanced the traffic volume on Barapullah despite lot of commuters were unaware of the opening of this flyover,” he said.

“Once the electrification work on the flyover and alignment of electric poles on Kilokari stretch is completed, heavy vehicles will also be allowed to ply on the flyover,” he said.

Brijesh Mehta, a commuter travelling from Noida towards Lajpat Nagar, was one of the first to use the extension. He said the facility will save him between 30 to 60 minutes every day.

“On Monday evening, it barely took me five or six minutes to cross the flyover. Earlier, I spent almost an hour stuck on this stretch everyday,” he said.

However, some commuters said that they were disappointed that the ramps to the flyover were not complete.

Chirag Sharma, a shopkeeper,said the ramp from Sarai Kale Khan not being opened was a letdown. “Seeing PWD’s track record, we don’t believe they will be able to complete the work in one month,” he said.

The end of the Ashram experiments also pave the way for the government to kick off a host of construction and maintenance projects around Delhi that were put off because of the closure of the extension.

These include maintenance work on the Chirag Delhi flyover, which will likely see it shut later this month.

“We have sourced the construction material but the traffic police has not provided a no-objection certificate and a date has not been fixed,” said a PWD official.

Meanwhile, Kejriwal on Monday said that Delhi has 101 flyovers and underpasses, 27 of which have been completed during the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) eight years in power.

“Fifteen more projects are in the pipeline, such as a six-lane flyover in Punjab Bagh, which will be completed by December 31, 2023. A flyover in Anand Vihar will be completed by August. Other projects to be taken up by the government include the Mangal Pandey Marg flyover, a rotary at Shalimar Bagh, the Maa Anandmayee Marg flyover, the East-West corridor, and the North-South corridor,” he said.

The chief minister said the state government is also working on a plan for the mechanised cleaning of Delhi’s streets. “In the first phase, 1,480 km of PWD roads will be cleaned. The beautification of roads is already being taken up. We have to make the entire city beautiful and congestion-free,” he said.

Anant Kumar, PWD engineer-in-chief, said, “The project was cleared by UTTIPEC (the infrastructure planning arm of Delhi Development Authority) in 2017, and an administrative approval of 129 crore was granted in 2019. The construction started in 2020, but the project remained disrupted due to the pandemic and lockdown for 8-10 months.”

Experts said the nearly complete project will help ease traffic between Noida and south Delhi.

Prof Sewa Ram, professor of transport planning in the School of Planning and Architecture, said, “Earlier, this traffic was getting trapped in Maharani Bagh. The only remaining concern now is the narrow surface level turns on the Mathura road on either side of the underpass which may lead to some delays.”

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