Violators take the one-way ticket to chaos on roads

GURGAON: The one-way roads made by traffic police all over the city are in a mess because of the violators. The violators on the one-way roads move on the wrong side without any check by the traffic police, leading to traffic jams during peak hours. The commuters claim that the police also do not bother to keep tabs on the wrong-side drivers on one-way routes.At present, the road diversion and the ongoing construction work on Rapid Metro are continuing to take their toll on traffic movement on the Sikanderpur-Cyber City stretch, especially during peak hours and the wrong-side commuters results in the usual traffic congestion.The TOI team, which recently went on the stretch between Sikanderpur Metro station and Golf Course, faced traffic congestion at at least four points during the journey because of the wrong-side commuters. The team faced major traffic snarls at intersections where vehicles heading from different directions were merging. Not only the four-wheelers but also the cycle rickshaws were moving in the wrong direction to reach the Metro station without any check.The bottlenecks were at the Metro stations on both sides where the private vehicles, auto drivers and cycle rickshaws head in the wrong direction to reach the station covering the shortest distance. “The road width has considerably reduced because of the autos and cycle rickshaws parked along the road and the other vehicles jostle for space and traffic moving at a snail’s pace. The chaos only increased during the peak hours. The existing width of the road is not enough to handle the huge evening rush,” said Surender Pal, a commuter.Then situation was similar at the road connecting Golf Course with HUDA City Centre Metro station via Sushant Arcade which is at present one-way but the commuters still prefer to go on the wrong side to save time. With traffic from HUDA City Centre Metro station heading towards Sushant Lok I, the road in front of Park Plaza Hotel is a major trouble spot, where the traffic coming from DLF IV merges with that coming from the other direction, resulting in accidents and traffic chaos.The partial relief commuters experienced from the traffic jam at such one-way roads seem to be shortlived with the area again becoming a bottleneck and resulting in tailback especially during peak hours. Motorists complain that the lack of traffic management adds to their woes and say no remedial steps are being taken.“The traffic flow was normal in the first few months and the situation had improved to quite an extent but of late things are back to what they used to be. Also, there are no marshals to man the area and something should be done to ease the traffic especially at this spot,” said Vimala Aggarwal, a daily commuter.The commuters say that they are not interested in finding out who is responsible for the jam. “All we want and hope for is that the road is not narrow and whichever authority is responsible should remove the encroachments,” said Ashish Kumar, another commuter.