A massive traffic jam was reported on the Jaipur-Delhi carriageway of the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway on Wednesday morning due to the closure of one carriageway of the Hero Honda Chowk (HHC).
There was a five-kilometre-long queue of vehicles stretching from the junction to the Cloverleaf flyover due to traffic congestion.
Commuters are taking 45 minutes to cross the 4.7km stretch, which normally takes them 10 minutes.
The situation has not changed since 8:45 a.m. when peak morning traffic hours began.
Traffic police in Gurugram diverted vehicles heading towards Delhi from the toll bypass road located 3 kilometres before the Kherki Daula toll plaza via the Southern Peripheral Road (SPR), Sohna Road, and Golf Course Extension Road.
Traffic police officials advised commuters coming from Jaipur to take the toll bypass road to Delhi until the situation stabilised.
According to Gurugram traffic police officials, the service lanes are not equipped to handle the high volume of vehicles, causing heavy congestion along the five-kilometre stretch.
“The service lanes aren’t being able to sustain the large volume of vehicles, we have started diverting vehicles through the toll bypass road and via the arterial lanes located before HHC wherever possible,” said a senior Gurugram traffic police official.
According to traffic police officials, vehicle movement on the opposite carriageway, from Delhi to Jaipur, was largely unaffected.
Despite the fact that traffic officers issued a public advisory about the carriageway closure and route diversion on Tuesday, many residents said they were unaware of the changes.
“It took me over 40minutes to cross the HHC congestion. Traffic is moving at a snail’s pace. If I had known about its closure, I would have taken the toll bypass road to head to the office,” said Rahul Sinha, who works in sector 30.
The 1.4-kilometre-long carriageway of the HHC flyover was closed for six days beginning Wednesday due to a span load test work binge carried out along the stretch by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).
The carriageway has developed two large holes since April 2018. The test is being carried out to determine whether the corrective measures were effective and whether the carriageway could withstand a heavy load of vehicle movement.
Commuters from Jaipur to Delhi must use the service roads of National Highway (NH) 48 instead of the flyover.