How arbitrary bus halts choke NCR eways daily

Noida/Gurgaon: Every evening, NCR’s expressways grind to a halt, not from sheer traffic volume, but from something more mundane—a bus stopped in the fast lane, a passenger hauling luggage over a central divider, traffic braking hard behind them.The region’s highways were mainly built for cars, for speed, for seamless connectivity to the capital. Buses, and the hundreds who ride them, were never quite part of the plan. The result plays out in real time, every day. From Noida’s late-night corridors to the flyover ramps of the Delhi-Meerut Expressway in Ghaziabad, and the Iffco Chowk elevated U-turn in Gurgaon, buses stop wherever passengers gather — on fast-moving carriageways, at roundabouts, in the shadow of grade separators that were designed to keep traffic from ever slowing down. Motorists are forced to brake hard while commuters scramble across traffic to board them.On the DME and NH-9, between Noida’s Sector 62 and Indirapuram — barely four kilometres — evening commutes routinely take 40 minutes. The cause is not volume alone. At Chijjarsi, Vijay Nagar, ABES and Lal Kuan intersections on the expressway, UPSRTC buses and private operators pull over on the main carriageway. Passengers bound for Meerut, Hapur and Baghpat and, on longer runs, Patna, Gorakhpur, Varanasi and Nepal, spill onto the road with trolley luggage and backpacks, queue along the shoulder and median, then make a dash across moving lanes.On the four-lane NH-9, the scene tips beyond disorder. Buses line up parallel to each other across the carriageway, resembling a bus terminal that someone forgot to move off the highway. Passengers haul bags over the four-foot central divider and cut through speeding traffic to reach them.Vikram Goswami commutes daily between the Electronic City metro station in Noida’s Sector 62 and Shipra Suncity in Indirapuram. The underpass he uses was designed to bypass the Model Town intersection and shave time off the journey. It rarely does. “By the time I reach the NH-9 exit toward Indirapuram, vehicles are already crawling because of buses standing on the road near the CISF cut and people trying to cross through moving traffic,” he said.A kilometre ahead at the Chijjarsi cut, the pattern repeats. Sumit Sabharwal, who travels daily between Delhi and Ghaziabad, understands why the stops exist — they spare passengers a detour to a terminal — but the cost falls on everyone else. “On an expressway, drivers expect a certain rhythm. But here, a person can appear between buses carrying luggage, or a bus can stop without warning. Drivers slam on the brakes. It creates panic.”Under UP Roadways rules, boarding and deboarding are permitted only at designated locations. On NH-9, these are essentially the service lanes, not the main carriageway. But on the ground, demand collapses the distinction.Ghaziabad ACP (traffic) Rakesh Tripathi said enforcement was complicated because the halts were officially recognised boarding points. “Traffic personnel are deployed to ensure buses stop in a single lane. Even then, during rush hours, the line extends till the NH-9 exits.” The department has written to NHAI requesting taller dividers on the DME to prevent jaywalking, but awaits a response.In Noida, chaos after darkOn Noida Expressway, the disruption stretches well past midnight. Private buses toward Mathura, Aligarh, Bulandshahr, Lucknow and Patna have spawned informal pickup zones near the Sector 148 cut and at Zero Point, close to the Yamuna Expressway interchange. Food vendors also occupy the stretches, narrowing the carriageway further.Omkar Gupta, a sales executive, leaves his Okhla office late, around 9.30 pm., specifically to avoid peak-hour traffic. But it rarely pays off. Congestion sets in 500 metres before Sector 148. “This happens during the night, which makes it even more risky as drivers are moving at high speed,” he said.At Pari Chowk in Greater Noida, buses halt at the roundabout as pedestrians converge from multiple directions, producing a nightly tangle of sudden stops and swerving lane changes.GB Nagar ARTO (enforcement) Udit Narayan said pickup and drop were not permitted on expressways. “We conduct drives and issue fines of Rs 5,000 for such violations,” he said. Vehicles found in breach of other norms are seized.Gurgaon’s fast-lane gambleA similar scene plays out in Gurgaon. Along the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, shuttle buses and long-distance coaches stop on the main carriageway at Shankar Chowk, Cyber Park and near Ambience Mall. Near Signature Towers, buses headed toward Jaipur and Rajasthan halt on the expressway rather than pulling into the service lane. Passengers drag heavy suitcases across oncoming traffic, vault crash barriers and board beneath the Iffco Chowk elevated U-turn.“It feels like a gamble every day,” said Rakesh Kumar, who uses the expressway daily. “You’re driving at 70-80 kmph and suddenly a bus stops right in front of you. There’s barely any time to react.”Experts from the Traffic Engineering Centre (TEC) point to a combination of flawed infrastructure and widespread disregard for traffic norms.At Rajiv Chowk, one of the city’s busiest intersections, the designated stop sits 420 metres from the junction, too far for most commuters to walk, particularly in punishing heat. So they wait at the junction, buses follow, and pile-ups result. Traffic islands meant to guide vehicle flow have become informal passenger waiting zones. Buses and auto-rickshaws cluster around them, stopping abruptly to pick up and drop commuters, creating bottlenecks, erratic lane changes and adding to collision risks.At the Sector 48-49/South City 2 junction — a key connector towards Kanhai village, Subhash Chowk and Badshahpur — buses routinely stop at the intersection rather than in the dedicated lane. At Iffco Chowk, they halt at the approach to flyovers where vehicle speeds are highest.Near the Binola industrial area, roughly 32 buses and 22 auto-rickshaws stop every hour to handle around 276 passengers, according to traffic department data. Each such halt nudges the probability of a collision a little higher.Commuters, people claim, are not blameless. “You see people running towards moving buses on highways,” said Neha Sharma, a South City 2 resident. “It’s risky, but they do it because they don’t want to walk or wait.”ACP Highways Satyapal Yadav said awareness campaigns run periodically alongside regular enforcement. In 2025, 12,882 buses were challaned across Gurgaon for violations, including wrong-side driving, illegal parking and speeding. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, 2,055 challans had already been issued.But the campaigns, the challans, the letters to NHAI have not resolved what is, at its core, a planning failure. NCR’s expressways were designed for cars. The fix, experts claim, must begin by honestly accounting for everyone else. “Bus stops should be approachable. Planners must keep pedestrian-friendliness in mind,” said a TEC traffic expert.With inputs from Shafaque Alam