Srinagar is witnessing worsening traffic congestion during the holy month of Ramazan, causing daily struggles for residents. All major routes are experiencing severe gridlocks between 3 PM and 6 PM, particularly along the stretch from Batmaloo through MA Road to Dalgate. This is the time, people rush home to break their fast. Ditto along Boulevard, Haiderpora, Sanat Nagar and Tengpora, triggering calls for a better traffic management, alternative routes, and stricter enforcement of parking regulations to alleviate the growing traffic woes.
However, the traffic snarls in the city are not Ramazan-specific, only timing may have changed. It has become increasingly difficult to travel through the city due to rising volume of traffic. Over the years, while number of vehicles has grown exponentially, the city’s roads haven’t. The latest data reveals that Kashmir recorded over 69,000 vehicle registrations in the fiscal year 2023-24, with Srinagar alone contributing more than 26,000 new vehicles. This has brought Srinagar’s total vehicle population to over 335,000, exacerbating the already critical traffic situation. According to an estimate, more than 62% of the Valley’s traffic converges into the city each day, clogging its limited road infrastructure.
True, construction of flyovers connecting Hari Singh Street with Rambagh have ameliorated the situation a bit in parts of uptown Srinagar, so has road widening in parts of downtown city, overall the traffic is far from being streamlined. The city continues to be hopelessly gridlocked on weekdays. In 2016, the Government had drawn up the plan of a 115 km long ring road for Srinagar. The three-tier ring road would connect East and North areas of the city with those on the West side. Most of the three-tier ring road would comprise four to eight lane roads. But the planned road, while a significant project, will primarily connect the city’s peripheries and may not adequately address the core congestion issues within the city.
The need is for our city planners to think for the long term. Their approach has to be comprehensive rather than adhocist in nature. The projects which should have been conceived and implemented a decade ago are being taken up now. The expansion of the city’s roads is desperately needed but not only with an eye to fix today’s problems but to handle the future traffic of an ever-expanding city. The ongoing initiatives to construct flyovers, widen roads, and introduce diverse modes of transit is a welcome effort by the administration to transform Srinagar into a modern, well-connected city.
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