Kolkata: Bidhannagar City Police has made a few changes in the traffic movement in and around the Haldiram’s crossing on VIP Road to increase the average speed of the vehicular movement and bring down the congestion.
According to police, in the earlier system, vehicles coming from the Baguiati side to go to New Town used to take a right turn from the Haldirams’ crossing. Similarly, the vehicles coming from the Kalikhali side along the VIP Road used to take a U-turn to access the airport-bound flank. In this process, a huge traffic congestion was a daily issue on the airport flank as a huge number of vehicles destined to New Town and Chinar Park used to obstruct the thoroughfare. As a consequence, the average travel time through the Haldiram’s crossing from Dum Dum Park was around 16 km per hour.
In order to decongest the area, police conducted a survey and finally came up with an idea to shift the right turn and U-turn point a few meters ahead. According to a written statement given by the Deputy Commissioner (DC), Traffic of Bidhannagar City Police, Makwana Meetkumar Sanjaykumar, the vehicles destined to New Town will now have to take a free ‘U’ turn from in front of the Kaikhali sub traffic guard instead of Haldirams crossing. Similarly, the vehicles coming from Kaikhali destined towards the airport will take a ‘U’ turn from the same point.
In the statement, police claimed that after implementing this system on an experimental basis, the average speed of vehicles has gone up to around 34 km per hour. However, police did not make it clear about the movement of vehicles that intend to use the service road of the VIP Road airport flank to move towards Mall Road and Jessore Road. Police also mentioned that a free left turn has been ensured for vehicles which intend to move towards Keshtopur from New Town via the service road on the Kolkata-bound flank of the VIP Road.