Going round in circles
Every weekday morning, Rishi Kumar finds himself caught in what he calls ‘a slow-motion whirlpool of traffic’ on his way to the office in central Delhi
Every weekday morning, Rishi Kumar faces a 'slow-motion whirlpool of traffic' on his commute to the office in central Delhi. Kumar expresses his frustration with the roundabouts in Lutyens’ Delhi, claiming they have become significant traffic bottlenecks. These roundabouts, once seen as a grand idea in urban planning, are now causing unexpected delays in reaching office.
The basic rule of a roundabout – that traffic already inside the circle has the right of way – has been replaced by a free-for-all, where the whole junction locks up within minutes. Roundabouts were initially designed to ensure smooth movement and give cities a unique identity, but now they are struggling to cope with the city's growing traffic.
A survey of 39 roundabouts in the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) area identified five worst-affected roundabouts: Teen Murti Haifa, Tughlak Road, Sunehri Bagh, Jaswant Singh (Panchmukhi Chowk), and Q-Point near India Gate. The issues range from disproportionate road widths, misaligned footpaths, oversized plantation spaces, narrow roundabout diameters, to driver behavior.
Experts argue that cities have grown faster than these junctions were built to handle, resulting in a mix of urban growth, road design, driving behavior, and surrounding network traffic causing the chaos.
Traffic engineers suggest treating the entire network rather than just a single roundabout. Junctions should be evaluated using a Level of Service (LOS) framework, which ranges from LOS-A (free-flowing traffic) to LOS-F (traffic movement breakdown). Cities like Ahmedabad and Chennai are redesigning their intersections based on traffic simulations and peak passenger car unit analysis.
In Ahmedabad, high-volume junctions have been converted to conventional signalized crossings, while intermediate-volume junctions keep their roundabout shape but add synchronized signals. Low-volume junctions remain signal-free. These strategies aim to improve traffic flow and pedestrian safety, providing a more efficient and cohesive urban circulation plan.
Written by urgent.news from Hindustan Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
