Pune has become synonymous with traffic chaos in the last few years. As per the TomTom Traffic Index, a live traffic monitoring website, traffic congestion here went up to 71.1% in 2025 from 65.7% in 2024, a swift rise of 5.4 percentage points.In the same period, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and state govt announced multiple flyover projects, in a bid to resolve snarls and improve vehicular flow. Experts, activists and citizens ask, however: Are flyovers the solution? Many have pointed out that building flyover projects for hundreds of crores of rupees doesn’t really resolve anything — it just causes pooling of traffic below or at both ends of the flyover instead. Take Nal Stop flyover for instance. For vehicles heading from Karve Road towards Kothrud, taking the higher road and avoiding the junction below is a cakewalk. Travel time and being stuck in jams has reduced for these commuters. But, for those who still have to use the Law College Road to Kothrud route via Nal Stop below the flyover, peak-hour trips are nothing short of a nightmare. Pushkar Tyagi, a student who uses this route from Senapati Bapat Road to Karvenagar daily, said, “I dread evening commutes because of this junction. SNDT Metro station, a bus stop and the flyover all converge. Buses that use the flyover suddenly take a left; other vehicles that use the at-grade road turn right, mostly to join the second flyover barely metres away. This always causes confusion. The queue snakes back into Law College Road and takes over the entire Nal Stop junction, becoming a hindrance even for those trying to go from Kothrud to Deccan without opting for the flyover.” “If a youngster like me can understand bad design, what are authorities or contractors hired to make these junctions thinking when they plan it?” he asked. Commuters using the 2.5km-long Sinhagad Road flyover have also observed that travelling on this bridge has become a timing game. Restaurant owner, Gaurav Kadam who travels daily from Dhayari to Karvenagar, said, “In non-peak hours, Sinhagad Road flyover is a great option. But peak hours are no better than they were before. Traffic gets blocked on either end of the flyover. Commuters spend the same time in traffic, if not more, than they did earlier.” IT professional Devayani Belsare, who frequently travels to and from Prabhat Road and Kothrud, said her route depends on the time of day. “I tend to go one junction back to join Karve Road because of traffic at Nal Stop. Thereafter, I have two options — either go all the way to Sahyadri Hospital to take a U-turn or join a smaller bylane and take a U-turn before turning left onto Karve Road. For those at the junction, a right turn is not allowed. Decisions like this encourage motorists to break rules. Commuting should be made easy, not complicated or tiresome,” the 29-year-old said. In-depth study crucial for long-term solution According to the Indian Roads Congress (IRC) manual for grade separators and elevated structures, planning of urban flyovers is guided by considerations of safety, efficiency and economy of traffic operation across major intersections along important road corridors. Traffic characteristics at the affected intersection remain the most important decisive factor. Since intersections are usually fairly closely spaced in a city, a flyover’s impact on adjoining intersections must also be assessed. IRC further states that traffic studies are a key activity for planning flyovers. As these are usually to cater to rush-hour traffic, identifying peak hours and peak-hour traffic characteristics is crucial. Former town planning department head at College of Engineering, Pune (CoEP), Pratap Raval agreed, “A step-by-step programme that not just handles the situation temporarily, but even in the long-term, is key. In-depth studies must be conducted aiming to resolve the issue for the next 10-20 years. While planning, land-use development must also be considered.” He elaborated that Pune’s passenger car unit (PCU) measure is increasing, while road width remains the same. PCU is used in traffic engineering to assess highway capacity and traffic flow by converting different types of vehicles into a single common unit. Raval said, “Vehicle-carrying capacity of our roads is exhausted. No flyover can solve this problem. However, this aspect is exactly what needs to be immediately addressed in an integrated manner. Today, traffic in Pune city has grown so much that in most cases, even flyovers get congested because of backflow of vehicles. Even regulated signal timings or synchronisation does not help. Then, diverting traffic from one area to another becomes the only solution.” It’s inducing demand, not resolving congestion Building a flyover should not be the first solution authorities jump to when chronic traffic congestion erupts, explained Sagar Kolapkar, assistant professor of transportation systems engineering in the civil engineering department of MIT World Peace University (WPU). “Building flyovers means creating induced demand. Simply put, increasing available space — in this case road space — lowers travel time cost and boosts options for commuters on these stretches. This invites more traffic on select routes and creates bottlenecks at the next junction. Flyovers are a great example of a ‘point solution’ and not a ‘network solution’. The latter is what Pune city needs,” he said. “On the one hand, authorities are pushing for non-motorised transport (NMT) like cycling and walking, but building flyovers takes the facilities needed for NMT away. Look at University Road. The flyover has eased congestion at University Chowk, but because most vehicles tend to speed on this stretch now, it has become risky for those choosing NMT over private vehicles,” explained Kolapkar. Echoing Raval, he said, “If a flyover is built as a solution to a congested junction, the few motorists that were discouraged to use that stretch will once again come back to it. So, while this works as a temporary measure, it is far from the correct solution in the long run. Having said this, flyovers can be appropriate where traffic volume is high and pedestrian/cross-traffic demand is low.” Deputy commissioner of police (traffic), Pune, Sandeep Bhajibhakare seemed to agree. He said, “There’s no issue with building flyovers as long as they are of the right design and at the right junctions. The University Road flyover is a good example. The single benefit of flyovers is that they save time for those who want to travel long distances. If flyovers are built for just one junction and end up in a bottleneck, they simply move the congestion point, not resolve the overall issue. Before building a flyover, planning must involve looking at the entire stretch and finding solutions to possible issues at the intersection where it will end, too.” How then can chronic snarls be tackled? Flyovers can be the answer, but they must not be the first recourse, said Kolapkar, adding that there are four solutions to congestion that don’t include building flyovers — junction redesign, signal synchronisation, pushing policies that discourages use of private vehicles and better land-use planning. “Encouraging public transport by integrating services will help a great deal. PMPML buses and autos must not compete with Metro for commuters but work together to achieve first- and last-mile connectivity. Arterial roads should have Metro services running throughout, with PMPML and autos acting as feeders to areas away from the main street. A parking policy that deters motorists from taking out their vehicles, if implemented well, will also go a long way in deterring private vehicle use,” he said. Both Kolapkar and Raval said the problem lies in lack of holistic planning. “The city needs to be looked at as a whole and a road network that runs seamlessly should be planned accordingly. It is important to start work on long-term solutions today, not when the situation is out of hand,” Raval emphasised. Interestingly, IRC has also mandated: “The decision to build a flyover should be based on the examination of different alternatives. Only after all other avenues of efficient management of traffic through grade treatments are exhausted must the elevated corridor be considered an option.”_________________________________________‘Vertical expansion of road network will be only way to cater to the growing population’Pune’s urban population is estimated to be one crore at present and is set to double by 2045. Around 70% of it now travels by private vehicles, 10-15% are pedestrians and the rest use public transport. Even if we change people’s perceptions and behaviours in the next 20 years and push 50% commuters to non-motorised or public transport, the rest (which will be 1 crore) will still need roads to ply on. Our roads are already deficient, and we have about 400km of missing links stuck under land acquisition issues. Around the same length of roads still need widening, which means more land acquisition. We are operating at compromised network capacity. Keeping all this in mind, it is important to give equal push to building elevated corridors to provide space and encourage commuters to opt for public transport. Given the city’s high migration rates and lifestyle choices, there are about 3 lakh new vehicles registered here every year. We just don’t have the roads to match this. Despite flyovers, there will be areas like Nal Stop, University Chowk, Deccan, Yerawada and Swargate that remain congestion pain-points as they have no alternatives. Nal Stop, for instance, has a 30m wide road that needs to be 36-45m wide as per the development plan (DP). This widening will only happen once buildings there go for redevelopment and then too, there’s no guarantee — Nikhil Mijar | Urban Transport Planner and Designer, PMC________________________Chaos On Roads A Big Issue: Citizens I don’t think flyovers help at all. All they do is create bottlenecks wherever they end. I have to sometimes pass via CoEP flyover while going to office from Kalyaninagar, but it is always so crowded that I would rather take the longer route than sit in a gridlock. In the evenings, the flyover and road leading to it are almost always jampacked. This can largely be attributed to the backflow of traffic that covers the entire flyover. So, I end up choosing a longer route that has smaller bottlenecks, like Khadki underpass — Joel D’Souza | Marketing Communications Professional_________Congestion is a big issue at multiple spots connected to flyovers, like Navale Bridge, Katraj flyover, RTO Chowk, etc. In most of these places, it can be attributed to encroachments and haphazard parking. The situation in narrow lanes, like in Karvenagar, is worse. Hawkers and private buses need dedicated spaces to operate and for customers to park, which will automatically resolve a lot. Smaller changes in public transport are also important so that people are encouraged to use it, like facilitating first- and last-mile connectivity — Shaunak Kulkarni | Music director__________Move People, Not Just VehiclesFlyovers and closing off median breaks may ease a bottleneck temporarily, but often just shifts congestion elsewhere without reducing vehicle demand. Continuously adding road capacity to accommodate growing traffic is not sustainable. Cities like Seoul and Singapore have instead focused on moving people, not just vehicles, through better public transport and smarter management of road space and ‘road pricing’ (like pay and park). Pune should stop treating road expansion as the default solution and prioritise high-quality public transport. Residents should demand management over building more capacity for private vehicles — Pranjal Kulkarni | Programme Manager, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP)
