Commuters are still spending more than an hour in traffic on Delhi’s Barapullah Phase III flyover a week after it opened.
On Tuesday, queues stretching more than two kilometres brought traffic on the 3.5-kilometre corridor almost to a standstill. Drivers reported journeys of 70 to 100 minutes; The Hindu said ambulances were also caught in the jam. The flyover opened on September 29 and had been promoted as a route that would cut the trip from Mayur Vihar to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences to 15 minutes.
The Public Works Department installed barriers at the merging point to guide vehicles along a smoother path. Police deployed officers there to let traffic streams pass in turns. An officer told The Hindu the measures were intended to reduce abrupt merging and slowdowns.
In a letter dated October 1, traffic police asked the department to redesign the merge near Sundial Park. The request followed a joint inspection on September 30. Police said the new flyover meets the existing road at an almost right angle, forcing traffic streams to converge sharply at a bottleneck.
Problems emerged soon after the opening: queues were reported to have reached 3.5 kilometres on subsequent evenings. One driver told The Hindu that the trip from Ghaziabad to Bhikaji Cama Place had been difficult and traffic on the flyover had stood still for more than 30 minutes that morning. Another commuter said it took more than 70 minutes to get off the stretch.
Delhi Police also asked Google to update traffic patterns for the new road. South Delhi Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Sandeep Gupta told the newspaper the company requested seven to 10 days to collect enough traffic data.