To ease the growing traffic mess on National Highway 8, induced by the discontinuation of toll collection at Sirhaul Plaza, authorities have planned to widen a km-long stretch between the toll plaza and RR Hospital. Officials said that the move will help disperse the inflated volume of traffic on narrow Rao Tula Ram flyover on Outer Ring Road. Traffic patterns on other stretches which are facing bottlenecks are being studied by the authorities to devise solutions.
“We are in the process of floating tenders for the widening of road between the toll plaza and RR Hospital. The widening work will take around one-and-a-half months after the tender process is over. It will ease the bottlenecks on NH-8, especially during the evening peak hours. The solutions for other stretches such as Kapashera and Dwarka will be finalised as per the suggestions of the traffic police,” said Dinesh Kumar, PWD chief engineer.
The Delhi Traffic Police and the PWD are experimenting with various mechanisms to each the bottleneck. The trial of making RTR flyover unidirectional for some hours daily has failed to be effective. The one-way movement on the narrow flyover works best for the traffic coming from Gurgaon towards IIT but it causes troubles for the commuters heading towards Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, Dwarka or Gurgaon from south Delhi areas.