Pune: Commuters using the city section of the Pune–Ahmednagar highway, especially between Yerawada and Wagholi, should brace for longer traffic jams for the next 15 months.On Sunday, MahaMetro shut down the BRT lane between the Ramwadi toll plaza and Vadgaonsheri Phata to facilitate Metro construction works. This mean, all the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) buses plying on this route will instead ply outside the BRT lane — along with the regular vehicular traffic.Local residents and a group of activists have raised an objection to the proposed Metro work “In the past two years, the government has spent crores of taxpayers’ money to construct the BRT lanes and bus stops along the stretch. These facilities will now be rendered useless to accommodate Metro project. The Pune Municipal Corporation did not have a futuristic development plan for the city,” said Qaneez Sukhrani, a social activist.She said commuters were severely inconvenienced on Sunday after the BRT lanes were shut down for the Metro works along the road.“Most commuters were confused. Some of the buses were plying on the wrong side of the road. There were reports of a few minor accidents too. Had the Metro authorities issued a public notice regarding this closure well in advance, people would have been better prepared,” said Sukhrani, who is also the president of Association of Nagar Road Citizens’ Forums, an independent body that has been following up on several civic matters with the authorities.According to Sukhrani, the closure of the BRT lane will cause huge traffic snarls on this route every day.“Neither the police nor the civic authorities, are bothered about the traffic congestion experienced on this road. They have been ignoring it for long. As the BRT lane will be closed for Metro work, all the PMPML buses will now ply on the main road adding to the vehicular load. This will result in bigger jams,” she said.The Metro officials, however, have denied all the allegations raised by the activists. They said they had taken all concerned authorities, including the Pune traffic police, into confidence before initiating this move.For better traffic management, the Metro officials have decided to deploy 10 traffic wardens along this stretch.“Our traffic wardens will work in close coordination with the city traffic police to manage the traffic along this stretch. At present, we have decided to rope in 10 wardens. If required, we will appoint more,” Prakash Waghmare, the chief project manager (reach III), told TOI .Illegal parking and encroachments, Waghmare said, are contributing to the congestion on the road. “With the help of the traffic police, we will remove these illegal structures and not allow any kind of parking. This will also help us in mitigating the snarls,” Waghmare added.Shifting of cranes and machines, Waghmare said, will be carried out in the next few days. “We will undertake this operation only during the night in order to avoid inconvenience to commuters. The majority of our work will be carried out at night,” he said.Meanwhile, motorists and other commuters fear the peak-hour traffic situation will worsen along this stretch in the coming days.“I get stuck in slow moving traffic every day — once when I am going to work and then again when I am returning home. All because one side of the road is completely occupied by illegally parked vehicles and hawkers. I do not understand why the traffic police are not removing them?” said software professional Kishor Raskar.“Poor traffic management is a serious concern on the road. The traffic department needs to rope in more personnel, particularly at junctions where the PMPML buses will come on the main stretch, to avoid any untoward incident,” said another commuter Sachin Sale, a resident of Wagholi.A senior traffic police officer, who did not wish to be named, told TOI, “Despite deploying adequate police personnel, we are unable to manage the congestion here. Since it is a state highway, the number of vehicles is very high on the road. That is also contributing to the daily mess here.”

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