Hyderabad: It’s not just Delhi where rain can disrupt traffic for hours. Hyderabad has its monster roads where motorists are stuck for long durations. It gets worse when it rains.
Even on Saturday, vehicles crawled on the Begumpet road due to waterlogging in front of the Chief Minister’s camp office.
It is not just the number of vehicles or the condition of the roads. The structure of the carriageway, the narrow width of roads, illegal parking and encroachments apart from the Metro Rail and road widening works add up to the traffick snarls.
Traffic crawls in the first gear, the exhaust adding to atmospheric pollution and the engines contributing to the noise.
Besides, there are very few exits on the roads from where motorists can opt for alternative routes that can take the traffic load.
There are alternative roads in the IT corridor, Sardar Patel Road, the stretch from King Koti to Moazzamjahi Market, LB Nagar Inner Ring Road, Toli Chowki, Malkajgiri and JNTU-Kukatpally.
Mr Randolph Merandez, corporate employee working at Gachibowli, said, “A few minutes of rain will choke the traffic from Shilparamam crossing, through Kavuri Hills up to the Jubilee Hills check post. The traffic starts jamming from Nagarjuna Circle upto Paradise.”
The Metro Rail work is on throughout this stretch. At Ayyappa Society and Kavuri Hills, the roads are very narrow.
“The alternative route is through Hitec City, Kuktapally, Balanagar, Ameerpet and Begumpet. This too can get choked. Buses get struck while taking a U-turn at the JNTU crossroad, and this adds to the chaos,” he said.
Mr Laxman Rao, a resident of Red Hills, said, “The one-way Koti main road is always congested. The narrow stretch connecting it to Moazzamjahi Market is so narrow that traffic gets stuck at the signals for four cycles.”
The traffic on the Nampally station road adds to the pressure. “All along the Moazzamjahi Market up to the Assembly, Metro Rail work is on. From there to PVNR Expressway, it’s a traffic nightmare,” Mr Laxman Rao said.
The Malkajgiri road from Neerdmet crossroads to the Mini Tank Bund is one of the worst since 2014. Despite a World Bank water project, no new road has been laid.
Another monster stretch is from Secunderabad station to RTC crossroads and Narayanguda. “From Golconda crossroads upto Narayanguda junction especially at the RTC crossroads, the potholes are over 10 feet wide,” said Mr Nara Hari of Mettuguda.
