[MadAbtCars]

Originally Posted by kadanaJ

To answer the first, yes. Flyovers do help with reducing traffic, or at least commute time. I'd like to ask any Mumbaikar reading this post to imagine the Western or Eastern Express Highways with intersections and signals instead of the flyovers, and imagine how much longer it would take them to travel past those roads.

I am not denying that the Eastern and western express Highways do not help in fast vehicular movement. But the question is do they help at all times of the day, well I don't think so. Ask anybody to travel during peak hours on the western express highway. He / She will dread at the very thought. The Eastern express highway still fares much better compared to its cousin, except for a few bottle neck points.

To address the main question, I feel flyovers do help but many of them are not planned properly. I drive a lot in and around Mumbai city and suburbs. ~70K odd kilometers in last 3 years of which 90% has been city driving. I can list down very poorly planned Flyovers in Mumbai and after driving so much, I have developed a fair sense of judgement as to which lane to stick to during a particular peak hour time. I have memorized which lane will have potholes, Entry / Exit points which will lead in resultant slow moving traffic on that particular lane.

Just to list a few poor planned flyovers,
1. The Bandra flyover, while coming from south i.e. from Bandra worli sea-link there was a traffic signal which was put in place right at the end of the flyover !!!! What is the purpose of a flyover when you have a signal right at the end of it. Haven't used that road for a while, but I think the signal would still be existing.

2. The two new flyovers i.e. the Eastern Freeway and the Santa-Cruz Chembur link road are really fabulous. Both have reduced the travel time and greatly helped in de-congesting the Eastern Express Highway. But both of them meet the Eastern Express Highway at the same place and the resultant traffic at the intersection is a nightmare. You have fast moving traffic coming from three direction bottling up at one crucial intersection. It takes 20 - 30 minutes just to cross that section. This however is only for traffic coming from south during evening peak hour. The morning peak hour is unaffected at this junction as there exists a South bound flyover over this junction.

3. Some flyovers take forever to complete, I am witnessing for the past 3 - 4 years an under construction flyover, i.e. the Ghodbunder - Mumbai Flyover in Thane. The flyover is still not fully functional after 4 Years !!!!! The end product is not looking promising either. So you just essentially bear with horrible traffic jams for 3 - 4 years owing to an under construction flyover and then never use it once its completed.

These are just a few examples. But the list is endless

Plus for constructing many such flyovers they put in place a toll recovery system. I fail to understand how much taxation a common man has to bear. The car we buy already includes Excise Duty, Mumbai and Suburbs people have to pay out additional LBT / Octroi, Then we pay Road Tax, then Various central and state taxes on the fuel we buy and if this is not enough we have to pay Toll. What sort of good governance is this??

[Accent Martin]

Originally Posted by charanreddy

@ Accent Martin : I am sorry that you took this comment personally even though I haven't referred to you in particular. I was speaking my mind on the subject against a general argument in found in this thread 'More flyovers will lead to more cars'.

Hey, no worries mate! we are good Apologies from me as well!

Moving on - guess what! Today morning went to Adayar Ananda Bhavan at BTM layout for breakfast and had taken the Jayadeva flyover from Bannerghatta road.
That flyover was jam packed
couldn't take any photos as I didn't have the space to open my car's door.

[i74js]

The question here is flyovers and not poorly designed flyovers.

1. Flyovers provide clean signal free driving pleasure and thus for sure help in maintaining a smooth flow of traffic while reducing commuting time.

2. Transferring congestion to the next junction simply means that additional flyover is required and the traffic cannot flow smoothly unless the new flyover starts operating.

3. If you have seen traffic management in Tokyo, it's a city that is completely plugged with flyovers and thus at none of the intersections the traffic stops, also almost for all trunk routes, there are toll roads and free roads giving adequate freedom to drivers to pick and choose the way they want to use at particular hour of the day.

4. All vehicles are fitted with RF ID based identification system (which is there in India also - but has not put to use), and this RF ID is linked to a credit card / banking channel, thus throughout the country the vehicle can use toll roads without stopping for toll payment while managing the collection for authorities. Also this helps in reducing the thefts as the vehicle movement is recorded at all entry and exit points

5. Solutions always work when they are tailor made rather than simply adopting a solution that has worked at some other location, traffic management is something that calls for reinventing the wheel every time by figuring out a solution best suited for a particular condition - heavy fines, odd and even no. cars on roads, car pooling, congesting charges, BRT, flyovers, integration of public transport, solutions could be many - what fits the need is required to be carefully applied in a city / region.

Cheers

[aniketi]

The biggest joke in the world is Hinjewadi Flyover in Pune. I guess its record should be put in the Guinness Book of world records. It is not the solution for the traffic here but its the root cause of problem. Flyover is built for city road & not highway. Due to this national highway, that to Mumbai - Banglore (NH4 highway), one of the busiest highway has a signal here, wow. Isn't it great guys? The planning is completely wrong here. Surprisingly everyone has agreed this now & but they don't have solution to this.

But overall flyovers can decrease the traffic load for sure. Its a good solution where its necessary. But i prefer grade separators more over flyover. Its less expensive, requires less time to build and they have longer life definitely. Also they need less maintenance for sure. But they need to plan in better way. They are more effective than flyovers if done properly. PCMC has done lots of this on old Mumbai - Pune highway & its very effective.

[benbsb29]

All said and done, when flyovers are built, they shouldnt be used the way they are in Bangalore, where you have bus stops both before and after the flyover! They end up adding to the existing chaos.

[HKap]

I think the flyovers especially on the western express highway in Mumbai are a disaster. Why would they construct flyovers in the north-south direction? All they managed to do with this design is create bottlenecks at the entrance of the flyovers. This might very well be because of lack of traffic discipline but its a major problem nonetheless. Wouldn't it be better to construct flyovers in the east west direction? We would then have a consistent width of the highway from Borivili to Bandra and that would lead to a smooth flow of traffic.

[AJ-got-BHP]

They come in handy definitely but it varies from city to city, flyover to flyover, area to area. But it is not the only solution for sure.

Out here in Kolkata flyovers are built to shift bottlenecks from one point to the other.

They are long & wide through & through but is made choking at the ends which result in more chaos and at times traffic jams on the flyover itself. So how does it help. One would wish to have a parachute handy when stuck in a traffic jam on a flyover and just jump off and move on to the destination on foot!

Also one key component is civil sense and vigilance of the cops on such flyovers. Flyovers here are not meant for HCVs, LCVs, Buses etc. whereas they are the ones who want to get on them and create further traffic up there and risk the existence of the flyover itself. It's a shame that they go through unnoticed by the cops at times without any penalties creating life risks for others around them.

Our flyovers are flyovers and not toll roads like elsewhere around the world with toll booths at the beginning. Wish it was done up in that fashion to eradicate nuisances

[Car-go-man]

Originally Posted by benbsb29

All said and done, when flyovers are built, they shouldnt be used the way they are in Bangalore, where you have bus stops both before and after the flyover! They end up adding to the existing chaos.

Very true! Jayadeva flyover and the Lingarajpuram flyover are good examples of the same.

There is also another problem that causes jams just at the beginning of the flyover or at the end of the flyover- people changing lanes suddenly to skip the flyover even though they know beforehand that they should be taking the service road. They end up blocking the vehicles intending to take the flyover and thus ending up in a jam. The Domlur flyover is an example of this.

Flyovers are good but they don't solve the problems caused due to-

1. undisciplined driving
2. poorly-stationed bus stops
3. buses not stopping correctly at the bus stop and instead blocking trailing traffic
4. poorly-designed signals
5. pedestrians crossing the road even when the signal is green
6. a vehicle break-down which is very common
7. a slow moving tractor or JCB
8. pot-holes
9. parking in no-parking zones
10. rain water logging
11. etc

If some of the above issues are addressed, much less flyovers would be needed than what we already have.

[trek]

Originally Posted by HKap

I think the flyovers especially on the western express highway in Mumbai are a disaster. Why would they construct flyovers in the north-south direction? All they managed to do with this design is create bottlenecks at the entrance of the flyovers. This might very well be because of lack of traffic discipline but its a major problem nonetheless. Wouldn't it be better to construct flyovers in the east west direction? We would then have a consistent width of the highway from Borivili to Bandra and that would lead to a smooth flow of traffic.

That could have been a very good alternative had they thought of it earlier! But I think with the narrow entry & exit roads on either side of the highway, building east west flyovers would have been very difficult.

Alternatively, they could have made a single freeway connecting from the town side right all the way up to Dahisar with entry and exit points at each suburb.

But now there is no way they can rectify the current mess! Until we get lane discipline and a better public transport system, the number of personal cars will keep piling up and clog the limited infrastructure.

[pratika]

In Mumbai, there are many flyovers constructed in recent times (last decade). If flyovers are constructed with proper planning, they are a boon. Case in point is JJ flyover. Commuting before this flyover came in to existence was nothing short of nightmare.

On western express highway, this one flyover at Times of India junction near Malad is peculiar. Before the flyover, there would be a lot of traffic on the red light during peak hours and during monsoon when the road condition is bad, things only got worse. Similar condition existed at Thakur complex traffic light.

After the flyover was constructed, traffic at Thakur complex has eased a lot. Anyone taking this route often will testify. The one at ToI junction is great, but during late evening hours not taking the flyover will help cross that junction faster. The reason is easy to understand - many rickshaws, buses, and trucks, ie slow moving traffic, clogs all the lanes. This, inspite of a board before the flyover suggesting that heavy vehicles are not allowed on the flyover. If heavy vehicles dont ply on that flyover, traffic could become much better there.

Can someone from Mumbai point out a flyover that is a bane? Just curious.

[sanstorm]

The flyovers buit in Pune are largely qualifies to be the bane/patch work. The case in point is - Paud Phata, University Circle, Satara road and Hadapsar. The glaring design flaws are -

1. Not planned with traffic growth at all ..too small/narrow and way too confusing
2. Traffic filtering in/out before and end of flyover creating jams
3. Beat me , but there is junction in middle of flyover at Hadapsar, queing up traffic both ways. The width is such, a lorry broken down can bring everything to grinding halt

Having said that , the flyover at Nasik Phata is real work of gem, just too good. So is the grade seperator used in Pimpri-Chinchwad (Old Pune-Mumbai Highways) to segregate traffic (without signals).

How twin cities adopt to infra needs so differently within periphery of 35kms :(

[jaaz]

Flyovers are only a temporary solution. Planning is the key to jam free traffic. Some of the flyovers destroyed in San Francisco, due to Earth Quake were never rebuilt. One of the reason was that they didn't serve the purpose.

As far as Bangalore is concerned, If the road users become disciplined, traffic snarls can be reduced by 25%. And another 25% can be reduced either by shutting down the shops which are bang on the edge of the road or not allowing any parking in front of the shops.

By the way - Richmond Circle flyover (which was a jinx from the beginning) has a large crater (Pothole). I guess Cars will have difficulty in getting down on to the Double road. And also, there's no space to avoid the Pothole.

[sswaroop]

Originally Posted by jaaz

By the way - Richmond Circle flyover (which was a jinx from the beginning) has a large crater (Pothole). I guess Cars will have difficulty in getting down on to the Double road. And also, there's no space to avoid the Pothole.

That pothole is horrible! I really hope BBMP/BDA take up asphalting of Richmond flyover like they did with the Sirsi Circle flyover recently. And also irritating is the fact people keep removing the median stones on this flyover and placing them randomly so that they can make an illegal U-turn midway through the flyover!

[srishere]

flyovers, do help in a big way. We cannot have shops by the side of road and thus no jay walking and no illegal parking... Think we should have flyovers for places like cochin, coimbatore, pondicherry.. for entire city cover.

[Srikanthan]

My 2 pennies here:

Flyovers themselves does not solve traffic problems, though they may mitigate them for a short period of time.

A flyover with a bad (designed / maintained) entry / exit point is very much ineffective as a cross-road.

I would rather live with a cross-road which is well maintained and properly signaled.

Primary cause of traffic congestion on Indian roads are:
1. Bad driving practices
2. Absence of roads at many places, which are replaced by pot-holes - looking like war-zones
3. Absence of clear shoulders and walk-ways for pedestrians
4. Slow-moving vehicles like carts, older ill-maintained automobiles
5. Break-down of vehicles on roads and no action to remove them for significant time