The city police have asked the public works department (PWD) to reduce the size of the island in front of the Swarnim Vijay Dwar gate of Fort William — now known as Vijay Durg — to tackle worsening traffic congestion at the busy Red Road-Outram Road intersection.
At a recent meeting at Lalbazar, joint commissioner of police, traffic, Rupesh Kumar said the island’s current size needs to be trimmed to create more road space and improve vehicle flow at the critical junction.
Senior police officers blame the growing vehicle count for forcing cars and buses travelling from Kidderpore Road and Hospital Road toward Dalhousie and Outram Road to crawl around the island. Reducing its circumference would allow smoother traffic movement, they argued.
“Ever since the Parama flyover was connected to the AJC Bose Road flyover, vehicle numbers on Red Road have shot up dramatically,” a police officer explained.
The numbers tell the story: Between 9am and noon daily on weekdays, around 2,000 vehicles queue at the DL Khan Road-AJC Bose Road intersection. About 70 per cent wait to enter Red Road via Hospital Road, while the rest make U-turns toward Rabindra Sadan.
The bottleneck
The island features a landscaped garden with flowering plants, tall palm trees, an electronic traffic display board, and a high-mast light pole, all enclosed by iron railings on a concrete base. Traffic signals and directional signage guide vehicles around the structure that sits prominently at Red Road’s heart.
During peak hours, this is where the traffic chaos begins as vehicles, two-wheelers and buses all jostle for space.
“Vehicles queuing at traffic lights to reach Outram Road and Dufferin Road crowd the space around the island. Cars going straight — not turning right — get forced to slow down and crawl,” said Indrajit Mukherjee, who commutes daily to his Dalhousie office via Red Road.
Buses create the biggest obstruction, forcing other vehicles onto dirt tracks to navigate around the island and reach Red Road, he added.
During peak hours, two-wheelers from Kidderpore Road often leave the carriageway to avoid getting trapped in the bottleneck. With no median divider around the island, police
have installed movable rail guards to prevent sudden lane changes.
Engineering solution
Senior PWD engineers have measured the existing structure’s radius and width after multiple site visits, sending a proposal to trim the island’s circumference to the Eastern Command for approval.
“Our preliminary estimates show that shrinking the entire structure by three feet on all four sides would create adequate road space for better traffic management,” a senior PWD official said.
The Eastern Command has requested expert input, prompting PWD to contact IIT Kharagpur. A technical team is scheduled to inspect the site this month. Eastern Command officers declined to comment.
PWD engineers pointed to successful precedents, noting that reducing rotary sizes at Pragati Maidan and Ruby on EM Bypass helped motorists navigate more easily due to additional road space.
“A similar approach for the Red Road island would be equally beneficial,” the PWD official added.