Over the past many months, the residential area of Sector 50, F Block, has been experiencing huge traffic congestion, especially at peak hours, as people of 7x societies and others have started taking the F-block internal resident road as short-cut for going towards Sector 50-51 link/main roads, which has increased traffic woes for the residents. The area has residential societies, a school and a temple. People are driving their vehicles at high speeds and are clearly unmindful of residents, including senior citizens and children, walking out of main gates or trying to cross over the road verge to take auto/rickshaw on the other side.
In August ‘23, the authorities had installed traffic signals with solar panels at the Sector 50-51 roundabout (Gol chakkar) and also small ones near Jain Mandir and Sector 50 main road, which worked for few days, but after that the signals are just standing as decoration pieces. Moreover, after the signals were installed, the traffic policemen who used to manage traffic at the roundabout are infrequent. Even when the lights were working, the drivers of private and public vehicles were not following the signals. In fact may residents feel that traffic management was better before the signal installation than what it is now.
Currently, to add to the woes, the traffic coming from Jain Mandir side is being diverted towards Sector 50 link roads by closing the turn towards Kendriya Vihar during evening hours, due to which the residents have to take a longer, more congested route to reach Capt. Shashi Kant Marg. Also, the road near Nilgiri School is also broken.
All this has not only increased the commutation time, but has also become hazardous for residents of the F-Block society. Looking at the expected increase in traffic during festive season, there is an urgent need to start and monitor the traffic signals and also place traffic police, especially at GolChakkar to manage the traffic.
The public/private vehicle drivers must also understand that while they are using the internal resident society lanes, they must be cautious of pedestrians walking/crossing over, and follow traffic rules and speed limits even when they are not monitored.
