Pune's Traffic Woes

It is sad that a city boasting of hosting the Commonwealth Games is unable to regulate traffic on one of its main artery roads -- Fergusson College (FC) road. It is even more sad that women and children prefer avoiding the road during peak traffic hours all because they fear the choc-o-block traffic across the road.

Nidhi, a mother of two says moving through traffic is an experience she would be happy to do without. “I will venture out with my children on FC road only during a life threatening situation. Otherwise I am better off indoors,” she says.

Police seem helpless and say they are unable to do much if the number of cars keep increasing at a never-ending pace. DCP (traffic control) Mahesh Ghurye says traffic policemen are not to blame for the chaotic traffic on FC road. “We are clogging our roads with cars like cholesterol in our arteries. If we have bumper-to-bumper traffic, 200 cars can be accommodated across a kilometer. During Diwali and Dussehra the number of vehicles increase manifold. We have no control over the number of cars clogging our roads,” he says.

Jeevan Bansod, Deputy RTO (Sangam Bridge) says, “On an average 11,000 new vehicles get added every month. During Diwali-Dussehra this year, a staggering 17,270 new vehicles hit the roads. Of the new vehicles, around 80% are two-wheelers. The number of autos on the road have actually remained unchanged since 1997, when the ban on issuance of new permits came into effect. New autos rickshaws get registered only when older ones need to be replaced.

According to Ghurye, it is public indiscipline that is causing the chaos. “We are booking 1,000 cases every day and 3 lakh offenders every year. We are collecting fines to the tune of Rs 3 crore yearly," he says. He feels unless there is a collective awareness on the need to obey traffic rules things will not improve.

Pune Municipal Commissioner Nitin Kareer says there is currently no plan to convert high volume areas into one-way streets, or to build flyovers. According to him, the National Urban Transport Policy is against flyovers. He further said a citizen survey in the city also indicates that citizens feel flyovers would not solve their problem.

Inspector Prabhakar Damale says changes can be made to the flow of traffic as and when people come up with complaints. Damale, on complaints from citizens, recommended that direction of traffic in one of the lanes in the three-lane Bund Garden bridge be reversed in order to reduce traffic jams. Ghurye promptly approved of the recommendation, easing traffic flow to a great extent.

Kareer says better public transport in the form of the Rapid Transit System is on the cards. He says, "the media is not helping us by sensationalising issues. If the papers say that PMT is Pune Murder Transport, which commuter will hop on.”

S G Rane, manager, traffic and administration, Pune Municipal Transport, says the PMC is planning to add up to 350 buses by the end of February 2007 to their existing fleet. He says a public awareness drive has also been planned once all the buses are inducted.
Rane says the PMC fleet is currently traversing a combined 2 lakh kilometers a day and their safety record has been quite good. One issue facing drivers, according to him, is stressful work conditions. Rane says the PMC is holding meditation classes to help drivers deal with stress.