Experts favour underpasses, alternative routes, synchronised lights to ease traffic in Chandigarh

After nearly six years, the proposed flyover at the Tribune Chowk is again under the judicial scanner. In the light of the High Court observation questioning whether Chandigarh could afford to compromise its founding philosophy for the sake of easing traffic, experts have favoured various alternatives, such as underpasses, bypasses and synchronised traffic lights, to ease traffic.

Related news: Heritage vs flyovers: High Court Chief Justice asks if Chandigarh’s identity should be sacrificed for easing traffic

“The uniqueness of your city is only because of the heritage concept. If that goes, everything goes. The uniqueness goes. It’ll be like any other city,” remarked Chief Justice Sheel Nagu while hearing a petition related to the proposed flyover yesterday.

A visual barrier

Experts are also of the view that flyovers would change the distinctive features of the heritage city.

“A flyover is a massive structure, which will create a visual barrier. The basic concept of Chandigarh’s planning of having the view of the hills in the backdrop will be lost. Besides, a flyover is an obsolete concept. It has been replaced by other variations and finally by grade separators,” says Tarun Mathur, a city-based architect, who has proposed the construction of an underpass at Tribune Chowk.

It becomes imperative to exhaust all alternatives before going ahead with the flyover project, as it is an irreversible process. Even if it was to be realised a few decades later that the flyover wasn’t a great idea, the ecological damage caused by the removal of trees can’t be undone. ?Flyover between junctions won’t help much

“A flyover that ends ahead of a traffic light point is definitely not a good idea. It barely resolves anything. They work well when the next traffic crossing is many kilometres away. In cities, they benefit commuters only after a series of these are built. When the flyovers came on Delhi’s ring road Rs 30 years ago, these really didn’t help. Congestion simply shifted to the next junction. It eased only after the entire ring road was equipped with a series of flyovers. Is that what we want for Chandigarh too?” asked Mathur.

To ease traffic, innovative planning like synchronising signals and making some roads one-way should be brought into focus, he added.

Remove rotaries, build underpasses

Expressing similar sentiments, a member of the heritage committee, said, as per the vision of the Le Corbusier, the construction of a flyover in the city should be the last resort, after exhausting various other alternatives such as installation of traffic lights after removing rotaries and constructing underpasses.

Dr Navdeep Asija, a specialist in road safety and sustainable transport, said most of the traffic coming from the Zirakpur side to the Tribune Chowk was Mohali-bound. After Zirakpur, Tribune Chowk was the only point for motorists to go towards Mohali. “If the UT Administration constructs a road parallel to the railway lines near Ram Darbar, a major chunk of traffic would be diverted towards Mohali and need not to come to Tribune Chowk,” he suggested.

A flyover at Tribune Chowk would only pull more outward traffic inward, defeating the very principles on which this city was planned, he added.

Urban eyesores

“Flyovers are being increasingly discouraged across the world because they are urban eyesores, encourage car dependency, reduce pedestrian accessibility and lead to noise and air pollution, etc,” said Surinder Bahga, an architect and former nominated councillor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation.

The proposed flyover would merely shift the point of congestion from the Tribune Chowk to the GMCH-32 junction, he said, recommending that alternative routes may be studied and segregation of vehicles and restrictions on heavy vehicles can be explored.

Opposing the move, Harman Singh Sidhu, founder of Arrive Safe, an NGO that works on road safety, said “In Tribune Flyover, officials see a mirage to ease traffic. The same is being projected to the residents as the only hope to decongest traffic.”

Did Zirakpur flyover make life easy for locals?

Once operational, the illusion will turn into disappointment when people will spend the same time lining up to take or leave the flyover at light points before and after it, he said, asking, “Did the Zirakpur flyover make life easy for locals? No, it didn’t. Don’t forget, we have to join or leave the flyover not just sail over it.”

Sidhu said: “Cities like Seoul are demolishing flyovers and replacing them with the grid system of roads like one in Chandigarh.”

Ajay Jagga, a former member of the Traffic Awareness Cell, Chandigarh Traffic Police, said he had requested Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari to review the proposed Tribune Chowk flyover and opt for a cost-effective underpass alternative.

The proposed 1.6 km, six-lane flyover project at Tribune Chowk, which is projected to start after the GMCH-32 roundabout and land ahead of the railway overbridge on Dakshin Marg, will not truly address congestion at Tribune Chowk, as traffic bottlenecks in Chandigarh primarily arise from cross-junction flows and increasing vehicle density at rotaries, not merely north-south movements.

Building a flyover will only shift congestion to the entry/exit points, creating new choke points, he added.

Properly designed underpasses at Tribune Chowk would enable smoother flow without creating new bottlenecks at adjoining sectors. This approach would establish a precedent for sustainable, heritage-sensitive mobility solutions in Chandigarh, rather than opening doors to indiscriminate flyover constructions, he said.