PWD to lessen width of roundabout, medians beneath Vyttila flyover to decongest junction

The roundabout beneath the Vyttila flyover.
| Photo Credit: THULASI KAKKAT

Faced with flak for doing little to lessen the extent of the massive roundabout and unscientific medians beneath the six-lane flyover at Vyttila, the Public Works department (PWD) has finally been asked to streamline traffic flow at the congested junction where chaos prevails all through day and night.

This comes in the wake of a joint study by the Motor Vehicles department (MVD) and the Traffic police, which was followed by a visit to the junction a week ago by Transport Minister K.B. Ganesh Kumar. A slew of measures were finalised to redevelop the junction by reducing the width of the roundabout and the approximately 25-metre-wide medians beneath the flyover by two metres on either side, it is learnt.

The junction is used by a whopping one lakh passenger car units (PCUs) and thousands of pedestrians every day.

“Apart from lessening the area occupied by medians, the carriageway of the free-left turns at the junction will be widened by laying paver blocks,” said Transport Commissioner C. Nagaraju C. The junction’s redevelopment plan also includes smoothening access to Kaniampuzha Road and the Vyttila Mobility Hub. In addition, instructions had been issued to the Ernakulam Regional Transport Officer (RTO) to relocate the bus stop on the Alappuzha side of the junction considering the chaos it was creating now, he added.

On why the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), which owns the NH 66 Bypass, had not taken back the junction from the PWD, sources in the NHAI said the agency would take over the junction once the PWD completed its redevelopment and the rectification measures that the NHAI had suggested.

Welcoming the impending redevelopment of the junction and the plan to instal barricades to streamline traffic flow in the east-west direction, Sunitha Dixon, the councillor representing Vyttila division in the Kochi Corporation, hoped that the works would be expedited since tens of thousands of motorists and pedestrians were struggling to cross the junction each day owing to the chaos created by the ‘unscientific’ flyover and the massive medians/roundabout beneath, which ate away considerable space.

“During last week’s visit, the Transport Minister had assured that funds would be sourced from the Kerala Road Safety Authority to redevelop the junction and to usher in traffic reforms. This would be of help, especially to buses which now find it difficult to gain access to the mobility hub. On its part, the PWD [Roads wing] must widen the one-km-long, two-lane Vyttila-Kunnara Park Road since other roads that converge at Vyttila Junction from the other three directions have four or six-lane width,” she said.

“In addition, I have demanded that the watch tower of the traffic police that protrudes into the carriageway on the western side of the junction be shifted towards S.A. Road where space is available on the triangular median. An abandoned hydraulic rig on the eastern side of the junction too must be cleared, to pave the way for a free-left turn,” she added.