PUNE: Pune Metro work has created traffic chaos from RTO office to Bund Garden Road stretch due to lack of coordination between PMC and MahaMetro. The civic administration has claimed that they have given necessary instructions to MahaMetro and they should follow them.
Aniruddha Pawaskar, Additional Superintendent of Road Department, said, “Before starting work of metro from RTO office to Bund Garden Road, we met officials of MahaMetro, traffic police and PMC. We instructe them to reduce the footpath so that people can get more carriageway to drive their vehicles. We are taking a review of the MahaMetro’s work.”
After one year, the Maha Metro started the Vanaz to Ramwadi route work on September 29, 2017. Two months ago, they started work on the RTO to Bund Garden Road stretch. MahaMetro has placed barricades on the stretch of road from Pune RTO to Pune railway station. After putting barricades, MahaMetro started reducing the width of the footpath. The work is now complete but people are still facing problems as four-wheelers halt on the road to pick up passengers from the railway station.
Near Ruby Hall Clinic, the footpath’s width has reduced but as there are many tour operators in the area, tourist buses are parked on the road resulting in massive jams.
The stretch from the petrol pump near Mobos Hotel to Bund Garden Chowk witnesses acute jams as MahaMetro did not reduce the width of the footpath but only placed barricades at the centre of the road and started their work.
When Prakash Waghmare, Chief Project Manager of Shivajinagar to Ramwadi route was asked, he said, “We were anticipating that there was no need to reduce the width of the right-hand side footpath from Mobos Hotel to Bund Garden Chowk. However, we are receiving complaints from people about traffic jams on this stretch. Hence, we will reduce the width of the footpath in a couple of days. On the other hand, there is no traffic problem. MahaMetro has assigned a marshal to help Pune traffic police in regulating traffic. I don’t think that there is any problem on this stretch so far.”
Sneha Kamble, one of the daily commuters on this route, said, “Though the metro will solve traffic problems in the future, we are facing traffic jams on Pune station to Bund Garden Road right now. I think there is a lack of coordination between the PMC and MahaMetro. Maha Metro started their work without reducing the width of the footpath and hence, commuters cannot ride their vehicles properly due to lack of space on the road.”
