Techies in Hyderabad's Hitec city area have been annoyed ever since authorities decided to shut off a major U-turn near Lemon Tree hotel.
Since June 1, thousands of techies who use the road from Cyber Towers have been forced to take a detour of close to 2 km and almost travel up to Biodiversity junction through the Raheja underpass, just to take a U-turn.
“My house is near Botanical Gardens and it was hardly 5 km away, as I could go straight through the signal once I got out of office. However, now I am forced to go through biodiversity junction, making the entire journey almost 8 km long,” says Karthik, an employee of TCS.
Officials closed the turn in view of the ongoing construction work for the Hyderabad Metro Rail.
“In connection with the construction of Metro Station by L&T in between TCS X road and Raheja underpass and construction of service road in front of Raheja complex by Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), the traffic from NCB and Cyber Towers on both directions is moving in a congested manner at TCS junction and leading to long queues on either sides of the newly opened underpass,” the traffic police said in an advisory.
While traffic coming from Cyber Towers is not being allowed to take a U-turn at Cyber Pearl at TCS X road, the police also said: “Traffic coming from Tech Mahindra, Dell, Deloitte and CII will take left turn after the Cyber gate way before HSBC and proceed towards Cyber Towers, take U-turn under flyover and proceed towards TCS, Raheja, Bio-diversity road to proceed towards Mehdipatnam and Gachibowli, etc.”
The traffic police requested the cooperation of IT employees and IT companies until further orders were issued and said that the measure was mainly taken to ease the traffic flow.
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Many are taking to social media and are asking Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MAUD) Minister KT Rama Rao to expedite the process.
While some complained that they had to travel for 45 mins for a distance of 1.5 km, others pointed out that things would only get worse with the arrival of the monsoon.
@KTRTRS @HYDTP @cyberabadpolice @arunar88
— Ankit Sabinkar (@AnkitAKW) June 5, 2018
We are trying to understand the logic behind blocking both the U turns near cyber gateway and the lemon tree signal. A person plying to office from KPHB direction has to go to biodiversity to take a U turn to attend offices in hitec city.
@KTRTRS sir.Traffic from HITEC city Railway Station to raheja mind space becoming horrible day by day.45 mins for 1.5 km. Issue due to lack of alternate road.Can ur team look at feasibility of parallel road to Kphb HITEC road via mosapet- ayyappa society.will reduce half the load
— Ram (@SriramGorti) June 6, 2018
@KTRTRS @hydcitypolice In the name of Metro works, U-turn near Lemon tree circle , hitec-city was moved to near Bio-diversity. So to reach cyber gateway we had to travel 3 kms in extra everyday. Please check this once.. Its also rainy season. Add an Uturn in between. Thnks
— Satish Edupuganti (@SatishEdupugan2) June 12, 2018
Sir, pls visit hiteccity to mindspace route once, I was right in front of my office, but it took 45 minutes to take uturn at cibertowers, daily they are making changes to detour
— Rakesh (@rakeshonmoon) June 4, 2018
The Raheja underpass was inaugurated in April this year and was the second project under the signal-free traffic corridors as part of the state government's Strategic Road Development Plan (SRDP).
Built at an estimated cost of Rs 25.78 crore, the underpass was expected to ease the heavy traffic in the area as several lakh people travel through the road while commuting to and from their workplace.
Ahead of the inauguration, a survey conducted by the GHMC stated that around 14,400 vehicles passed the stretch every hour and the number of vehicles was expected to shoot up to 31,356 every hour by the year 2035.
However, with Metro officials immediately starting work on the stretch between Ameerpet and Hitec city and aiming to complete it before the end of the year, the underpass has not really been able to manage the congestion during peak hours.