The Pune Traffic police cautioned citizens to brace for further traffic jams at the Pune University junction and connecting roads in the coming days owing to work on the next phase of Pune Metro and announced additional traffic diversions Sunday night.
Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) in 2020 demolished the old flyovers — one at the Pune University junction and one in front of E-Square theatre — after the PMRDA and Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) jointly decided 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.
The Pune University junction — which sees traffic flowing to and from Pashan, Baner and Aundh and the combined traffic of Ganesh Khind Road and Senapati Bapat Road — is one the busiest junctions in the city.
Over the last week, as the preparations for the next phase of Pune Metro have started, the traffic in this cluster has seen some of the worst traffic jams in recent history, according to officials. These traffic jams forced all stakeholder agencies to swing into action, hold back-to-back meetings and field visits and put more traffic diversions in place in addition to the existing circular one-way traffic for the last year.
Teams of officials from Pune traffic police, PMC, PMRDA and Pune Metro held a joint meeting Friday (February 2), which Pune Police Commissioner Ritesh Kumar chaired. These officials also visited the Pune University traffic junctions and connecting roads on Saturday (February 3).
“With the next phase of Pune Metro work starting, road width of around 11 meters will be used for construction activity. The resultant traffic jam will cause inconvenience to commuters and put a strain on the police machinery controlling the traffic flow.” said a press statement from the traffic branch.
Over the last year, the Pune police have implemented a circular one-way from University Square, Pashan Road, Pune Rural SP Office, Abhimanshree Pashan Chowk, Abhimanshree Baner Chowk, Baner Road, Sakal Nagar and back to University Square. The additional traffic restrictions in place in this area with immediate effect will be as follows.
1) Traffic from Baner Road and Aundh Road going towards Shivajinagar will be released on the left lane of the road without any traffic signal, except one for the pedestrians to cross the road.
2) For vehicles on Ganeshkhind Road to Senapati Bapat, there was a U-turn at Cosmos Bank. This U-turn has been closed and traffic will now take a right on the Senapati Bapat Road junction.
3) Traffic from Senapati Bapat Road to University Square will take the usual left from Senapati Bapat Junction but will have to face additional barricading.
4) Traffic coming from Ganeshkhind Road and going straight to Aundh will have three alternate routes. a) Vehicles can go on Pashan road, take right at Sinhagad Gate of Pune Rural Police and take right on Baner Road to come to University Square to get to Aundh. B) From Pashan Road take right on Abhimanshree Society Road and reach University square. C) From Pashan Road take right on Abhimanshree Society Road and then take left to Baner Phata and take the route via Sarja Hotel and Croma or via ITI Road and Parihar Chowk.
5) Commuters coming from Pimpri Chinchwad via Rajiv Gandhi Bridge will need to take left on Spicer College Road, Ambedkar Chowk, Sai Chowk and Khadki Railway underpass instead of taking the Ganesh Khind Road.
6) Commuters coming to Aundh from Pune Station, Mundhwa and Koregaon Park have been urged to take the route via Engineering College flyover, Wakdewadi, Khadki underpass to Spicer Chowk and Bremen Chowk.