New slip road, lane widening to curb traffic gridlocks at Shankar Chowk in Gurgaon

Gurgaon: With a view to streamlining traffic movement and reducing congestion near Shankar Chowk and Cyber City, work on a new slip road and lane widening along Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway has been undertaken.The project is aimed at improving access to the elevated U-turn near Cyber City and easing pressure on key bottlenecks on NH8.With the construction of the slip road, the commuters from Udyog Vihar do not need to travel till Iffco Chowk to take a U-turn, as direct access to the elevated U-turn is now unavailable near Cyber City.At present, only motorists coming from the Delhi side or Ambience Mall side can currently use the elevated U-turn facility. Officials said the proposed slip road will bridge this gap by allowing smoother access to the elevated U-turn for traffic approaching from Udyog Vihar and adjoining areas.The work also includes widening of lanes near Cyber City so that vehicles coming from the Ambience Mall side can merge more seamlessly onto the NH8 service lane without creating bottlenecks near the elevated U-turn. The redesign is expected to reduce unnecessary weaving of vehicles and long detours currently faced by commuters.According to the traffic police, the changes are being carried out on the recommendation of the district road safety committee and with detailed road engineering teams to improve traffic circulation in one of the city's busiest junctions. The work is being carried out by DLF under its CSR initiative."We are making efforts to improve the road geometry to ease the access points and traffic movement around Shankar Chowk. The purpose is to streamline traffic flow and improve connectivity once the road work is complete. The slip road has already been constructed and we expect the lane widening to be completed before monsoon," traffic inspector (highway) Mahabir Singh said.At Shankar Chowk, around 80,000-90,000 vehicles pass through this junction, with 20,000-25,000 pedestrians crossing daily. This is among the black spots on Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway. Last year, this junction saw seven accidents, with three people dying.Traffic police are also planning to carry out a trial run to streamline the traffic coming from Golf Course Road, Rao Gajraj Singh Marg, Iffco Chowk and Shankar Chowk Road that converge at the junction.The stretch witnesses heavy traffic throughout the day because of the presence of Cyber City, Udyog Vihar and multiple office complexes. With traffic converging from four directions, that resulted in a bottleneck near Shankar Chowk. It already hosts the Cyber City rapid metro station and the location is set to become even more complex with the upcoming Gurgaon Metro and RRTS, both expected to have stations here.Additionally, a foot overbridge is being constructed at this junction. However, there is some delay due to pending permission for two trees falling in the alignment of the structure. "Once completed, it would allow safer pedestrian crossing on the highway without disrupting the traffic movement," Singh said.