Spike in vehicles, stalled traffic has motorists on the edge in Hyderabad

The flower vendors arrive with their fragrant baskets of jasmines, kankambaram and maruvam at 4 p.m. and park themselves beside the road divider outside the Rythu Bazaar in Mehdipatnam. The vehicles move around them dangerously close. Some of the vehicles driven on the wrong side move closer than the others. “We have no choice. Any other place the business is not good. People stop near the first person to buy flowers,” says one of the vendors who makes a daily trip from Tandur to sell the flowers here.

As the evening progresses the vehicular movement becomes a dizzying chaos. There is no order as vehicles coming from Rethibowli cross to the other side and go towards Asifnagar. Vehicles coming from Asifnagar go towards SD Eye Hospital after moving in the wrong direction. The one way from Azizia Mosque towards Prince Hotel is turned into a two way by motorists creating hair-raising experience for rule-bound motorists.

“Tolichowki and Mehdipatnam is a nightmare of lawlessness. Sudden U-turns, triples, no rules past 10 p.m. If any police personnel has to complete their quota of challans it is a helmet-less heaven,” says Aravind Ramachander, who uses the stretch of road frequently.

But this is not the only road junction that has become a traffic nightmare with frequent accidents. Another motorist Lokendra Singh lists the junctions that are lawless: “Puranapul Jn, Jummerat Bazar Circle, City College, Ek Minar Masjid, LB stadium Roundabout, Secretariat Signal under TT flyover, Chilkalguda Circle, Kothaguda Jn, Ratnadeep Hi-tech City T Jn.” If it is the encroachments on the road by shops near Jummerat Bazar and Ek Minar Masjid; it is the volume of traffic and navigation engineering that befuddles motorists in Chilkalguda and LB Stadium roundabout.

“The stretch from where the PNVR Expressway starts till Humayunnagar is a real mess. Private buses restrict traffic movement by stopping on an already narrow road. Illegal parking under PVNR Flyover. Vehicles driving in all wrong directions in front of the PS,” says Ahmed Towfeek, a resident.

“We are trying to regulate the traffic but people drive in a rash way and are willing to fight. Over the past 20 years, the two-wheeler percentage of traffic has come down from 50% to 20% while 4-wheelers have gone up from 50% to 80%. The road width has not changed,” said a traffic police official of Asif Nagar Traffic PS sounding helpless.

“The pushcarts that used to occupy a chunk of road from Humayun Nagar to Rethi Bowli have been moved to inner lanes. What used to take 20-25 minutes now takes 7-9 minutes. This gets affected if there a VIP movement due to the airport,” said the police official.

This complex pulls and pressures of an exponential increase in number of vehicles, lack of discipline among road users and the road width remaining the same has had a cascading affect on commute time. And there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel for road users in Hyderabad.