Traffic congestion having become a regular feature of Dehradun particularly during the time of vacations, the traffic police officers stressed on opening bypass roads to facilitate the tourists to go straight to their destinations without bringing extra burden on the roads used by the normal commuters. Talking to The Pioneer, Superintendant of Traffic Police (SP) Dehradun, lokeshwar Singh said that there are two types of traffic in the city at the time of vacations. “The one involves the visitors and the other involves the locals. The problem is that both the regular commuters and the tourists take the same road while going to Mussoorie as there is presently no option left. This naturally results in huge traffic pileups. We thus are for opening a bypass for the outsiders through which they can directly go to Mussoorie. The traffic congestion around the library Chowk is maximum. This is because there is no alternative route for the tourists to avail. Things turn unmanageable when the people in large number go to the hill station on vacation. We find it really difficult to manage things around this time,” he said.
SP also said that there are two types of traffic diversions they go for when they are faced with the possibility of heavy traffic flow. “First is the one we enforce at the time of any important event or programme.
This is in force for some hours or for a day. The second is the routine route diversion during which we divert the route from the main areas to the outskirts like Prem Nagar, Doiwala and Daat-Kali. We erect barricades, direction marks, for diverting route. This we enforce for a longer duration at the time of vacations when people hit roads in huge number. After the vacation is over we withdraw things,” he said.
“For better results, we change the routes. But the locals use the short cuts which disturbs our plans. We need cooperation of all to ensure smooth traffic flow. However, we are now adopting new technologies for best results,” Singh added.