Elevated gridlock: Visitors crawls by means of Gachibowli’s latest flyover

Days after the inauguration of P. Janardhan Reddy (PJR) flyover connecting Kondapur and Gachibowli, motorists are dreading the drive on the elevated stretch. Commuters and consultants are highlighting persistent bottlenecks and longer journey instances. Designed as a six-lane elevated hall linking the Outer Ring Highway (ORR) to town’s IT hall, the flyover is seeing every day volumes of as much as 75,000 autos. This has shifted the strain onto narrower linking stretches, notably close to the Radisson Resort on the Gachibowli-Miyapur street, with bumper-to-bumper visitors stretching onto the flyover.

“It will get actually slim and chaotic throughout peak hours. What ought to take 10 to 12 minutes usually stretches to twenty minutes. Truthfully, it feels just like the street wasn’t designed with present visitors in thoughts,” mentioned Steve Abraham, a non-public worker who travels from Sainikpuri to Gachibowli.

Anjali Rao, a tech skilled from Miyapur mentioned, “It’s irritating, particularly close to the Radisson stretch. The merging is messy, and nobody appears to know who has the suitable method. I exploit this route every day to achieve my workplace in Kondapur, and what ought to be a fast drive is now a crawl.”

A vital bottleneck has shaped close to the Radisson Resort, the place three lanes of visitors from the flyover and two from the Gachibowli junction beneath, are squeezed right into a street barely large sufficient for 3 lanes. “Earlier, autos waited at a sign and moved in batches. Now, there’s no stoppage, all of the autos transfer on the identical time and it will get gridlocked,” mentioned a Gachibowli visitors police officer. He added that congestion peaks between 4 p.m. and eight p.m., usually inflicting backups of 40–50 metres or extra on the flyover.

In a short lived repair, the visitors police just lately made provisions to redirect one lane of visitors and merge it past Radisson Resort onto a four-lane street. “We’ve been doing this for the previous few days, and it has introduced down common ready instances from 20 minutes to about 6–7 minutes, whereas journey time stays virtually the identical,” the officer mentioned.

One other adjustment concerned shifting a U-turn close to the touchdown of the flyover round 150 metres below the construction. “Earlier it was leading to congestion with an elevated threat of accidents,” the officer added. A proposal to widen the street close to the Radisson stretch, including about two extra lanes, can also be into consideration.

But, consultants argue that the problems transcend short-term fixes. City mobility professional Prashanth Bachu mentioned town’s strategy to street design is flawed. “We hold increasing lanes arbitrarily, however they will’t be expanded infinitely. All visitors ultimately converges on the narrowest level or different arms of that street,” he mentioned.

In accordance with Bachu, every lane, flyover or in any other case, can carry about 1,200 car-equivalents per hour. “You might save one or two minutes on a flyover, however you’ll lose extra time on the subsequent junction, which will get choked by the unregulated move. We’re now seeing that the time saving advantages of latest flyovers are nullified inside two to 6 months. A decade in the past, it took at the least two years for that to occur,” he mentioned.

There may be additionally a shift in visitors patterns, largely pushed by navigation instruments. Extra autos from the ORR are actually routed through the broader PJR flyover, bypassing the narrower Shilpa flyover. “Commuters headed in direction of Hafeezpet, Kukatpally, KPHB Colony, Nizampet, and even Madinaguda, who earlier took the Shilpa Structure flyover, are being directed to take this route. Consequently, visitors quantity right here has surged,” the visitors official defined. After the PJR flyover, commuters take the Kothaguda flyover earlier than turning off close to Yashoda Hospital.

A part of the reason being design: the PJR flyover begins barely sooner than the Shilpa flyover, by round 100 metres, and navigation apps immediate customers to take the previous.

Commuters and consultants have additionally flagged the absence of clear signage, including to confusion and delays, particularly for first-time customers. Regardless of the deployment of visitors personnel throughout peak hours, the quantity of autos continues to pressure the infrastructure.

Whereas the police count on the proposed road-widening undertaking close to Radisson could supply some aid, consultants warn that except there’s a shift in planning philosophy, specializing in managing demand fairly than merely increasing provide, new flyovers will proceed to ship diminishing returns.

Within the interim, Bachu confused the necessity for extra pedestrian crossing indicators at common intervals. “By doing so, you’re holding the visitors at periodical intervals, thereby avoiding heavy visitors accumulation at one spot. This may also assist pedestrians, and motorists who have to go to the alternative facet, to cross the street simply,” he mentioned.

Revealed – July 06, 2025 07:38 am IST