SUKANTA SETU
TARATALA FLYOVER
NEW TOWN ROAD, NEAR CITY CENTRE
Chingrighata: Morning traffic along the EM Bypass alternately stalled and crawled for the second consecutive day as widening potholes and construction bottlenecks on the Salt Lake Bypass a few kilometres ahead came into play.
Private cars, taxis and buses were caught in a cacophony of honking and frayed nerves as distances that are usually covered in a matter of minutes took up to an hour to travel. The worst snarls were reported on the last stretch of the Bypass leading to Salt Lake and onward to the technology hub in Sector V.
On the Salt Lake Bypass, vehicles cut left and right and motorbike riders swerved to avoid potholes that were hard to miss.
Metro construction along a portion of the road, which is linked to flyovers at Chingrighata and Wipro, further slowed down traffic. Vehicles coming down from the Chingrighata flyover and those entering Salt Lake from the south-bound flank of the Bypass merged in one of the narrower stretches of the road, triggering snarls stretching many kilometres.
The worsening condition of the thoroughfare after the rainfall this week added to the chaos.
"The potholes are in all sizes - small, medium and large. Immediately after coming down from Chingrighata flyover, all vehicles are forced to move single file. You don't know whether to worry about your car hitting a crater or getting rear-ended by the vehicle honking behind you," said Supriya Chatterjee, a resident of Kasba who works in an IT company's office on Street No 13 of Sector V. "A part of the road has been cordoned off, building materials are dumped by the roadside and then you have the gaping holes on the carriageway. It's pathetic."
Traffic police deployed on that stretch fought a losing battle against the snarl build-up as the usual office-hour rush peaked.
Ishita Das, a resident of Golf Green who drives to her workplace in New Town, said she was stuck near the Chingrighata flyover for close to 30 minutes. "Omce I reached the base of the flyover, huge craters forced traffic ahead of me to move dead slow. The traffic cops were around but could do little."
Traffic congestion had started around 9.15am and continued till 11.30am, when the surge of vehicles moving from Ruby towards the north is the highest. "It was not as bad as Monday, though," a police officer said.
A team of senior officers, including deputy commissioner (traffic) Sumit Kumar, led the effort to ease the congestion on the Bypass. Motorists intending to take the Chingrighata flyover were diverted towards the Beleghata intersection to avoid the bottleneck, only to discover that turning right towards Salt Lake was an even tougher proposition.
Repeated attempts to fill the potholes on the Salt Lake Bypass are apparently hitting a technical hurdle.
According to engineers in the Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority that maintains the Salt Lake Bypass, the Sukantanagar area has a drainage station that pumps out water onto the EM Bypass-bound flank.
"Whenever it rains, the water pumped out by the drainage station washes away the top layer of the asphalt. The road also becomes extremely slippery," said Debashis Sen, the chairman of the township authority. "We have decided to connect the outlet to the underground drainage network. This will ensure that water does not damage the road."
A police officer said the pockmarked stretch of the Salt Lake Bypass would be barricaded for repairs starting this Friday. Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd, the implementing agency for the 32km Garia-Airport Metro line, will carry out the repairs.
"We have had a discussion with RVNL on this. Since Saturday and Sunday are lean days in terms of traffic, repairs can be carried out faster. We hope commuters won't face a problem from Monday," the deputy commissioner of traffic said.
