Bottom Line: A homebuyer shares his experience of beating traffic blues in Hyderabad.
Roushan D Shetty, a resident of Aramgarh in Hyderabad works at one of the prominent hospitals in Mehdipatnam. The distance from his house to work place is about 17 kms. This distance can not be termed as a far off distance from India’s urban reality of travelling to work. Still the travel was quite taxing before the infrastructure threw open an alternative route to beat the traffic.
As a matter of fact, he thought of many times to quit the job during 2004 to 2009. Reason: the maddening traffic of the city that would take almost an hour of drive. It was like spending up to half hour at one place without the traffic moving an inch, he recalls.
“The only reason I stuck to the job during those days was the lack of better or even similar professional opportunity. I used to get completely exhausted with the snarl pace drive and chock-o-block roads. But then everything changed with the PVNR Expressway getting operational. Now the same distance is a mere 20 minutes drive and the best part is that it is a smooth drive without any bottlenecks,” says Shetty.
The PVNR Expressway gives seamless connectivity to the airport on one side – travel time of 15 minutes and to the core areas of Hyderabad like Mehdipatnam and Banjara Hills, and on the other side – travel time of 20 to 30 minutes. It also lies along the Outer Ring Road (ORR) and is close to National Highway 7 that connects the city to Bangalore, Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar.
The 11.633 km long PVNR Expressway, named after former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, connects the Mehdipatnam area in the city to the Hyderabad-Bangalore National Highway (NH 7) en route to the International Airport.
Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority has developed this 17.2 m wide, four-lane flyover. It starts in front of Sarojini Devi Hospital at Mehdipatnam and ends at Aramghar junction on Hyderabad-Bangalore national highway NH-7. It joins an underpass, which leads to the airport. As a temporary measure for emergency U-turns, three median gaps have been provided.
Travellers like Shetty have cut their travel time with this flyover that provides smooth drive in the absence of red lights and any human or animal obstruction. For most of the office goers it is an enjoyable drive. It has cut the travel time for most of the commuters to the airport by 30 to 40 minutes.
The feedback from the ground is very positive from most of the office goers and other frequent travellers to airport who are taking this Expressway route. Barring the places where the ‘U’ turns are provided, one can speed up to 100 to 140 km per hour.
“Now I don’t need to change the job or think of living closer to the work place. This Expressway has indeed changed my day for the between and I am not hassled by the traffic snarls anymore. I return home more happy and positive after the day’s work,” shares Shetty.
