Will GNB Flyover solve Guwahati’s traffic woes? Planners fear a missed opportunity

There is no denying the fact that the Smart City Mission, launched on June 25, 2015 in 100-odd cities across the country, has made significant strides in different facets of urban living, be it urban flooding, urban public healthcare, solid waste management, or urban mobility.

The country is moving fast and so is the state of Assam on various indicators of development as evident from the Economic Survey of Government of India for 2024-25 notwithstanding the flip side.

But all said and done, the capital of the State, Guwahati, which assumed the role of a regional capital for the north-eastern region of the country almost since 1990s and experienced an exponential growth in its population, area, real estate, service sector activities, trade and commerce etc., has still been grappling in meeting the increasing demand for civic services, particularly potable water and an efficient mobility system.

The government is not found wanting in not addressing these pressing issues, but there seems to be some planning myopia which might take the city back to square one.

Mobility is perhaps the fourth basic need of human being after food, clothing and shelter. In the realm of urban mobility, two attributes are of paramount importance, namely, – reduced journey time and journey cost.

Regardless of the mode of travel—though public transport remains the most efficient—reducing journey time and cost requires free-flowing thoroughfares.

However, this becomes impossible as main roads are flooded by traffic from countless arterial and sub-arterial roads. The near-universal solution is the flyover, despite the visual clutter it adds to the city's skyline.

The first five flyovers of Guwahati, namely, Maligaon Chariali, Panbazar, B Borooah Road, Chandmari and Narengi have met the purpose absolutely satisfactorily since all five were constructed to simply fly over the railway lines (they were in fact railway over bridges) and since none of them disrupted the vehicular flow originating from the sub arterial roads below.

All subsequent flyovers have also been more or less serving the purpose although the mess at the major road intersections below those flyovers have not lessened perceptibly.

However, in case of Noonmati-Guwahati Club flyover (visual observation of the writer finds the origin at Parag Das Path from Nonnmati end), the post-construction scenario is almost certain to experience the same chaotic traffic flow along the entire road stretch below the under-construction-flyover as it is on this day.

The main reason for such a possibility are three - (i) while all of the existing functional flyovers fly over only one junction (T or cross roads), the Noonmati-Chandmari flyover shall fly over as many as four busy T junctions; (ii) while none of the existing functional flyovers fly over more than four sub-arterial or arterial roads on both sides of the main road below the flyover (cul-de-sac not considered), the Noonmati-Chandmari flyover shall fly over (considering the Guwahati Club end) as many as 19 arterial / sub-arterial roads on the left side, and seven on the right side with three of them linked to the large neighbourhoods across the railway line (no cul-de-sac considered on either side); and (iii) while none of the existing functional flyovers fly past any big office complexes, institutions, commercial complex, the Noonmati-Chandmari flyover shall fly over a number of office complexes like the Office of the Chief Engineer, Water Resources Department, PWD (Building), PWD (Roads), Industrial Estate, Industry Commissionerate, cinema halls, higher secondary and primary schools, nursing homes, huge market complexes.

However, there will be some marginal reduction in traffic volume on Maniram Dewan (MRD) Road if the traffic flow on Noonmati-RG Baruah road and RG Baruah Road-Guwahati Club directions respectively are diverted through two arms of the under-construction flyover which cannot though allow the city buses to ply on these arms for obvious reasons.

Now since only two roads (Parag Das Path and Heydeyetpur Road) shall get connected to the flyover, the rest of the 24 arterial / sub-arterial roads that merge with MRD Road shall experience (see the lay out) the same traffic snarls as of today since the traffic generated in these 24 arterial / sub arterial roads shall only increase over the years due to the residential, commercial, public-semi public land use character of the priciest neighbourhoods of the city abutting these 24 roads.

Thus, no matter whether the flyover is just half a kilometre from your doorstep, you cannot fly over it as it would be impossible to connect each of the 24 arterial / sub-arterial roads to the flyover by branching out ramps at every half / one kilometre distance.

A more sound and a very low cost approach could have been (i) making the entire stretch of Parag Das Path to Guwahati Club as no parking zone (even for two wheelers) and its strictest enforcement, (ii) construction of U-segregator at the busy T- junctions (there are no cross roads along the entire stretch) and (iii) continuous minimum-width median all along the stretch except at the sections of U-segregators. These three measures shall certainly ease the traffic snarls on MRD Road once the said flyover is opened to the public if the space below the flyover is not fenced around.

(The author teaches at the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal)