Gurgaon goes car free

Visibly, Gurgaon recorded an overall reduction of 25-30 per cent of traffic in it’s four major corridors on Tuesday. Elaborate arrangements have been made by Gurgaon Police to make the initiative a success.

It was concentrated on four major corridors — DLF Cyber City, Cyber Park, Golf Course Road and Electronic City claimed it to be a “never seen before smooth corridor”. This was made possible by diverting the traffic to other routes. 

The stretch from Rajiv Chowk to Subhash Chowk marked a heavy trail of traffic at the peak morning hours. But keeping the initiative in light, Gurgaon Police tracked down major traffic blockers and helped clear the snarls. 

Around 22 towing vans were hired to pick up cars parked in the ‘No Parking Zone’ and were <g data-gr-id="44">challaned</g> at Leisure Valley Park. The day marked a total of 46 challans. Most of the towed cars were brought from DLF and MG Road and each vehicle was charged Rs 300 for the offense. 

A pre and post-air quality survey was conducted by EMBARQ India which showed a 21 per cent reduction in PM 2.5 emissions in the DLF Cyber City area. 

“The advisory notice sent to private schools came out to be of huge help, when most of them went car-free and practiced what they preached. Scottish High School and Shri Ram School followed it by heart”, Navdeep Singh Virk, Commissioner of Police, Gurgaon, said. 

“Car Free Day is not a new concept. World over it was started 22 years back and is held on September 22 every year. Gurgaon is experimenting it for the first time,” Virk told reporters here.

“If the experiment is successful, we will observe every Tuesday as ‘car-free day’ in select locations. The idea is to take it to the weekly basis, because we are in a state where we actually require it because there is so much congestion on roads,” he said.

Gurgaon administration hired 200 extra shuttle/bus services to provide public transport to <g data-gr-id="46">it’s</g> system and provide them an alternative to private vehicles.

To get a clear picture at the grass-root level, the number of vehicles parked at major Metro stations in Gurgaon were recorded. Iffco Chowk Metro station daily records around 700 vehicles in their parking space but on Tuesday, it recorded around 300 vehicles only. 

People working in MNCs and big corporate offices including their CEOs used public transport on Tuesday. Even cycles were arranged at some locations for commuters.

Meanwhile, traffic jams were witnessed in some areas Shankar Chowk, Sohna road and Cyber City reported traffic jams in the rush hour. Several citizens also took to social media to vent their frustration and anger and accused traffic police of mismanagement.

Talking about this, Bharti Arora, Joint Commissioner (Traffic) said: “The traffic snarls witnessed in some areas were resolved. Several routes in the city were diverted to create car-free zones. All in all, it was a successful ‘car-free’ day.”