Potholed E M Bypass stretches take toll on tech hub commute
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Kolkata: The ride to the IT hubs in Salt Lake Sector V and New Town on Monday was less agonizing than it had been in the past week. But the traffic still crawled through stretches of cratered road during rush hour.
Though KMC and KMDA have taken up repairs, intermittent spells meant that it would take a few days more before the commute became smooth.
While rain has left stretches of EM Bypass riddled with potholes, two vehicle breakdowns didn't help matters on Monday morning. The poor condition of the Park Circus connector near Science City, where the road surface has worn off, contributed to the slow movement. While it was the Salt Lake- and New Town-bound traffic that was agonizingly slow in the morning, travelling in the reverse direction turned painful in the evening.
With interlocking concrete blocks yet to be installed at College More and RDB crossing, movement from College More to Lohapool took over 25 minutes. The movement from Lohapool to Chingrighata took another 20-25 minutes.
"Monday was better than last week when this stretch was taking an hour to even 75 minutes to cross. But the road is still battered across the entire Bypass, and there is still no solution to ensuring that the extra lane from Salt Lake Bypass can be used to channel a larger number of vehicles onto Bypass.
The fact that the Bypass stretches around Avishikta is a mess meant it was a pain commuting back home," said Saptarshi Majumdar from Garia, who travels to Technopolis each day.
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For Joka resident Aditi Banerjee, her shuttle bus tried to skirt the Salt Lake Bypass traffic jam and took the slip road near Salt Lake JU campus. "We got stuck with nowhere to go. Even though we were not allowed to take Maa Flyover-AJC Bose Flyover, we got rerouted through Beleghata Canal Road-Sealdah-Esplanade-Khidderpore.
With Mominpore still a challenge for commuters, it took me close to three hours to reach home from Unitech Gate 1," said Banerjee.
"Due to the bad condition of the roads, cars and bikes are being damaged continuously. This thing needs proper vigilance," Soumendu Roy wrote on X.
The cops, though, shared Google Map updates showing how the tail had barely reached the stadium gates (and moving) on the southbound ramp in the evening, a regular sight.
"We have decided to continue with the extra channels created for approaching Maa Flyover. We have approached civic bodies to repair stretches of PC Connector and Bridge No. 4," said an officer.
Sources said that once an "ongoing legal tangle" gets "amicably" solved between private parties and a govt agency at Sukantanagar, a long-term solution of taking in more vehicles from Salt Lake Bypass onto EM Bypass can be worked out by demolishing the sweets shop at the Chingrighata crossing and creating an additional channel on Moila Khal towards Science City.
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