The Hyderabad traffic has been a pain in the neck in the recent times. My frustration towards it reached a boiling point in one of the mis-adventures in recent times.
Sesh and I set out at dusk for a party to the city. We started from our college and the destination was Begumpet (Hotel Haveli). Instead of taking the longer but relatively free road, we choose to take the Ameerpet road unaware of the battlefront that lie ahead. The ride was smooth till some distance as we passed by the posh and beautiful jubilee hills houses. Slowly, the density and randomness of the traffic began to increase as we approached Ameerpet. Finally, our vehicle came to a halt as we saw the red light some 200 metres ahead of us and there lay a long stretch of vehicles aligned in all possible directions in between. It was 10 minutes before we crossed the signals but it seemed like eternity. During these minutes, we experienced the following things
- Six toggles between the red and green signals.
- Inhaled quite a bit of the poisonous gas that was all around.
- A bus sprayed its gaseous residue on our faces.
- We analysed each and every advertisement hoarding around. We also voted the best among them.
- Almost bathed in sweat.
- The flawless manoeuvering of the bike by Sesh through the tiniest gaps.
- The depressed faces of people around. Especially, the crowd in the suffocating bus.
Traffic in Hyderabad is definately going out of control. The traffic rules are non-existant as one sees on the roads of Hyderabad. It is close to random with only a little order, thanks to the existence of traffic lights and few fly-overs.
With the boom in IT industry in Hyderabad, one has seen a huge development of buildings. Large number of companies are setting up their offices. One can see high rise buildings having a tiny narrow road in front of it. What makes it worst is that most of these buildings do not have a proper parking space. It is difficult to widen old roads. I hope the road widening campaign goes on well to take care of traffic situation now and later.
The MMTS has been useful but not as much as a rising city like Hyderabad needs. One should be able to take the train from the busiest places like Ameerpet, Koti, Punjagutta etc but there is no such train near such location. The stations are far and also one has to reach the stations in time to catch the train. In my opinion, a metro rail is a must for Hyderabad. I admit i don't know the practical and monetary problem but it is needed for the city to develop. Imagine if one could take a metro from Punjagutta and go to Airport in 10 minutes, or if one could take a train from necklace road and reach Charminar in 15 minutes. I think there would definately be a large percentage of population who would avail this opportunity. For most people of Hyderabad currently, the travel by bus/car/bike to the workplace is more stressful than the work itself which is unfortunate. I hope the metro rail/mono rail project is properly planned keeping the developments of the next few years in mind.