DDA plans traffic decongestion in and around commercial centres

DDA has developed a number of District Centres, Community Centres, Non-Hierarchical Commercial Centres and Local Shopping Centres.  These are composite centres with retail shopping, general business, commercial and professional offices, government offices, cinemas, restaurants and other entertainment facilities.  The required infrastructure for traffic for these centres had been envisaged as per the population projected in the Master Plan and the road networks in these areas were developed accordingly.  Provision of infrastructure for traffic had also not been done prior to the disposal of these commercial plots and the cost towards provision of infrastructure in and around these commercial centres was also not loaded on to the project.  Over the period, due to the increase in population and number of vehicles as well as the revisions in the Master Plan like introduction of mixed land use, the load on the road infrastructure has increased manifold resulting in extreme traffic congestion in and around these centres.

DDA has decided to decongest traffic in and around several district centres which are hierarchically the most important commercial centres.  Traffic decongestion has been proposed for the district centres at Saket, Netaji Subhash Place (Wazirpur), Laxmi Nagar, Vasant Kunj, Rajendra Place, Janak Puri and Nehru Place.  Traffic decongestion would be through upgradation of accessibility (ingress and egress), road infrastructure, parking spaces and facilities for pedestrians. The upgradation would be taken up through short term as well as long term solutions.

The short term solutions would include the following:-

• Junction improvement by channelizing traffic and pedestrians
• Traffic management through one way movement, closure of medians, road markings, etc.
• Improving edge conditions
• Traffic calming measures like table top crossings, 3D zebra markings, rumble strips, etc.
• New entries/exits and closure of entries/exits
• Improving signages
• Parking management
• Removal of encroachments
• Retrofitting  of roads
• Improving signal timings
• Improving road geometry
•  Improving facilities for public transport
• Integration of various other modes

The long term solutions would include the following:-

• Grade Separators
• Construction of new (bypass) roads
• Upgradation by way of retrofitting
• Construction of footover bridges (FOBs)
• Construction of non-motorized vehicle (NMV) lanes

The required funding for the infrastructure upgradation on these centres would be from Urban Development Fund (UDF) of the Ministry of Urban Development and General Development Account (GDA) and Nazul-II Account of DDA. A portion of future receipts from auction of plots in these centres shall be escrowed into a separate account to ensure infrastructure upgradation.

Unified Traffic and Transportation Infrastructure (Planning & Engineering) Centre (UTTIPEC) has been directed to prepare detailed designs for both short term and long term solutions for each project. After the designs are prepared, these would be put up in the public domain inviting objections/suggestions which would be duly examined before execution of the required works. The proposal for decongestion of traffic in and around commercial centres in Delhi was approved by the DDA in its meeting held on 10.8.2016.