Five years ago,the Supreme Court-appointed Bhure Lal Committee gave directions to the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to synchronise the traffic signals at busy junctions in the city. Today,though the civic body claims to have synchronised eight corridors,including the Ganeshkhind Road,Senapati Bapat Road and Karve Road,the results are far from visible. Commuters still have to wait for red signals on either side of the journey on most of these corridors. Traffic experts and commuters observe that though the PMC claims to have synchronised eight corridors,its benefits are not all evident,as they still have to stop at signals. In 2005,when Nitin Kareer was the civic chief,the Bhure Lal Committee had visited the city,to suggest various ways to bring down the pollution level. One of the recommendations was that 37 junctions in the city be synchronised to facilitate better flow of traffic,so that vehicles from at least one direction do not have to stop at the signal. So far,we have synchronised the traffic signals on eight corridors including Bund Garden Road,Ganeshkhind Road,Shivaji Road,Bajirao Road,Karve Road. And the total number of signals synchronised are well beyond 37, Shrinivas Bonala,additional city engineer (traffic planning) of PMC told The Indian Express. DCP (Traffic) Manoj Patil said,It is true that the civic body has so far synchronised a few corridors in the city. In order to synchronise the signals,the minimum distance between two signals has to be 500 metres. Chandmal Parmar of the transport committee of the MCCIA strongly disagrees that the signals have been synchronised. The PMCs claim that traffic signals have been synchronised are false. Signal synchronisation has not happened anywhere in the city. Synchronisation means that commuters on at least one side of the road get green signals throughout. But this is not seen anywhere. None of the adjoining signals seem interconnected, he said. Maj Gen S C N Jatar (Retd),also of similar opinion,said,While travelling in the city,we hardly see the traffic signals synchronised,as we have to stop even on those routes claimed by the civic body as synchronised. People who use some of these corridors on a daily basis said they still have to wait at the signals for a long time. Satyajit Jadhav,a software professional,said,Every day I take the Senapati Bapat Road to my workplace and I have to wait at all the signals while coming and going. If the signals were synchronised,I would not have to stop at every signal like this.
