Pune City Traffic Police have announced further restrictions for the ongoing Metro work at Pune University Chowk and have imposed a 24-hour ban on heavy vehicles on Ganeshkhind road and patches of Pashan Road, Senapati Bapat Road, and Baner Road, except for the emergency vehicles, passenger vehicles and vehicles for Metro work.
The Pune Traffic Police said last week that with the next phase of Pune Metro work underway, the road width of around 11 metres is being used for the construction activity on Ganeshkhind road and Pune University Chowk.
The Pune University junction, which sees traffic flowing to and from Pashan, Baner, Aundh, and the combined traffic of Ganesh Khind Road and Senapati Bapat Road, is one the busiest traffic junctions in the city.
The police have said resultant traffic jams are expected to cause inconvenience to commuters and are also putting a strain on the police machinery controlling the traffic flow. The next phase of Pune Metro has led to some of the worst traffic jams in recent history over the last one week in this cluster of roads, according to officials.
These traffic jams forced all stakeholder agencies to swing into action and hold back-to-back meetings and field visits on February 2 and 3 and put in place more traffic diversions in addition to the already existing circular one-way traffic being implemented in the last one year.
With the traffic situation further worsening over the last week, Pune City Traffic Police Monday night announced further restrictions by imposing a ban on heavy vehicles on Ganeshkhind road and patches of Pashan Road, Senapati Bapat Road, and Baner Road throughout the day. The ban will be applicable for goods carrying heavy vehicles. It will not be applicable to emergency services, heavy vehicles of Pune Municipal Corporation and civic bodies, passenger vehicles, and vehicles employed for the Pune Metro work.
The 24-hour ban on heavy vehicles will be applicable to Ganeshkhind road from Sancheti Chowk to Rajiv Gandhi Bridge, for Pashan road for vehicles coming from Sus to Shivajinagar, for Baner Road for vehicles coming from Radha Chowk to Shivajinagar and for Senapati Bapat Road for vehicles coming from Law College Road to Senapati Bapat Junction.
The alternate routes demarcated for the restricted heavy vehicles are as follows: Heavy Vehicles coming from Solapur Road and Hadapsar and going to Mumbai via central parts of city have been diverted via Gadital, Saswad Road, Mantarwadi Phata, Katraj Kondhwa Road, Khadi Machine Chowk and Katraj. Heavy vehicles coming from Ahmednagar Road and going to Mumbai through the central parts of the city have been diverted via Kharadi bypass, Shastrinagar Chowk, Ambedkar Chowk, Chandrama Chowk, Poultry Farm Chowk and Old Pune Mumbai Highway.
It can be recalled that the two old flyovers — one at the Pune University junction and one in front of E-Square theatre — were demolished by the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) in 2020 after it was jointly decided by the PMRDA and PMC to construct a two-storey flyover with the top floor for an elevated metro rail corridor to connect Hinjewadi to Shivajinagar and the first floor for vehicular traffic.
