With no central verge, Bawadia ROB always on verge of traffic meltdown

Bhopal: As per traffic cops, the apathy of construction agencies and their own helplessness continues to play out on city roads. It can now be observed in yet another form: the severe traffic congestion at the Shahpura end of the Bawadia Kalan ROB, which has become a daily inconvenience for commuters and residents in the area.
More than 5 lakh people from Trilanga, Shahpura, Aakriti Eco City to Salaiya in Misrod, and also from Kolar use the ROB for their daily commute towards Hoshangabad Road.
Senior traffic officials said there are road design and engineering defects at the Shahpura end of the ROB.
The left turns are not clear; there is no central verge, and there are no proper road markings, they said. Despite the heavy volume of traffic, the construction agencies concerned are least worried about rectifying these issues, thereby causing daily problems for thousands of commuters on the route.
Arpan Rajput, a resident of Shahpura, told TOI that traffic congestion at the Shahpura end of Bawadia ROB is a regular problem that they have to deal with. During peak hours, traffic cops remain deployed to regulate traffic. But as they go away, the traffic congestion again resumes.
Arpan said that during the morning hours, several school and college buses carrying students from the Shahpura area, Kolar, and others use the bridge to go towards Hoshangabad Road, during which traffic jams occur. Around 10 am, the volume of office-goers increases, thereby creating traffic congestion on the roads connecting the Bawadia ROB.
The same situation occurs in the afternoon when the school and college buses return and in the evening peak hours when office-goers return home.
The traffic coming from Dana Pani side, Tilak Nagar, DK Cottage side, Shahpura police station side, and Gulmohar Colony side, which want to go to the bridge, get stuck in traffic jams daily.
Due to these vehicles, the vehicles rolling down from the bridge also get stuck in the jams and congestion.
Another local, Brijendra Shrivastava, a resident of Shahpura, said, "The worst suffering is that of the colony residents, who reside in the surrounding areas. Many a times, the queues of vehicles from the overbridge reach their colony. All the roads connecting the bridge are affected by the jam. If somebody has to reach someplace in an emergency situation, the jam poses a lot of unnecessary hurdles for them, which often delay them."
A senior traffic police officer said that roads from the Dana Pani area, the newly constructed concrete road, and the road coming from DK Cottage Colony or Bawadia village meet at the Shahpura or Bawadia Kalan end of the overbridge. The bridge abruptly ends on the road, making it a crossing without a clear left turn. The roads intersect at 90-degree angles. The square is very small.
He said there is no central verge at the end of the ROB, due to which vehicles overtake and get stuck in jams at the square. There are no proper road markings. Traffic signals cannot be installed because the left turns are not clear, there are no road markings, no central verge, and the design of the crossing needs to be rectified.
Additional DCP (Traffic) Vikram Singh Raghuvanshi said there are technical problems at the square on the Shahpura end of the Bawadia Kalan ROB, which need to be rectified for smooth movement of traffic. Traffic cops are deployed to regulate traffic during peak hours, but the volume of traffic is so high that the cops struggle to manage the situation. The square needs to be redesigned, and the agencies concerned should rectify the problems at the earliest for smooth traffic flow.