BHUBANESWAR: Two days after it was thrown open to the public, the Bomikhal flyover is back in news again for all the wrong reasons. Instead of serving its purpose to ease traffic mess on Cuttack-Puri Road, the flyover seems to have compounded the woes of commuters, the reason being its faulty design.
Chaos and confusion reigns on the flyover as commuters use the unidirectional bridge as a bidirectional one in a bid to take a short-cut. The three-way flyover connects people from Rasulgarh and Bomikhal to Saheed Nagar.
Only the commuters coming from Bomikhal to Saheed Nagar and Saheed Nagar to Rasulgarh can use the bridge. People going towards Bomikhal from Rasulgarh and vice-versa cannot take the flyover and similarly, those going to Bomikhal from Saheed Nagar are required to reach Rasulgarh using the bridge and then use the service road at the U-turn to reach their destination.
However, most of the commuters, especially two-wheelers, are not following the rules and are using the flyover to save both time and fuel. Commuters have been found accessing the flyover at Rasulgarh on the wrong direction to take a short-cut to Saheed Nagar. Similarly, people are taking wrong turn at the traffic island of the bridge to reach Bomikhal from Saheed Nagar.
While this bidirectional driving on a unidirectional flyover has led to chaos on the flyover, lack of traffic management atop the bridge has worsened the situation.Ashok Chand, a commuter, said, “When the flyover was opened for public, we thought it will resolve the problem of traffic jam in the locality, especially during the evening. However, the bridge has created another traffic mess.”
Many commuters questioned the design of the bridge. “The flyover was supposed to save time of commuters who had to wait for long at Saheed Nagar level crossing to reach Bomikhal. But now, we have to go to Rasulgarh and then take a U-turn to reach Bomikhal which costs us extra fuel and time,” they rued.
Urban planner Piyush Ranjan Rout said the way in which the flyover has been built will only lead to traffic mess. Such a problem wouldn’t have arisen had the authorities focused on addressing these faults during its construction, he said.
On the other hand, PWD Engineer Pradip Kumar Nayak said there was no fault in the design of the flyover. The one-way traffic on the bridge will surely help public in the long run, he claimed.
The present traffic mess on the flyover is occurring mostly due to irregular movement of onlookers who want to have glimpse of the newly built bridge. “We have requested for deployment of more traffic cops at the bridge for a certain period to avoid this mess,” Nayak added.