Ghaziabad: The Lal Kuan to Bulandshahr Road Industrial Area stretch of Grand Trunk Road, long notorious for traffic jams, will remain off-limits to heavy vehicles for five hours daily, from 5 pm to 9 pm.“GT Road passes through the Bulandshahr Road industrial area and for a long time now, the stretch, especially during peak hours, has remained stuck in snarls due to the movement of heavy freight vehicles. We will close it from Saturday for five hours daily,” an officer from the traffic department said. “We will assess the situation after some time, but as of now, till further orders, it will remain closed for heavy vehicles.”Traffic police recently held a meeting with an industry body and got their approval for closing the stretch, the officer added.This remains a short-term solution, as GT Road passes through one of the most congested areas of the old city. NHAI had earlier planned to decongest GT Road by proposing to build an elevated corridor over the Thakurdwara flyover using portal pier engineering. However, the plan failed to materialise. PWD then tried to widen the stretch by removing the shops on both sides of GT Road, but they too found that it was not feasible.Ghaziabad Development Authority is now also planning an elevated road along the stretch. The proposed 2 km, four-lane flyover would run from Ghantaghar (Ramlila Ground) to Bhatia Mod, directly crossing and decongesting the bottlenecked Chaudhary Mor intersection. The proposal was placed before the GDA Board on Aug 21 this year and has been passed. “The cost of the project has been pegged at Rs 200 crore. It will be taken up under the Urban Challenge Fund, which has already been sanctioned by the state govt.”The official said the elevated road will decongest busy stretches like Bhatia Mod, Choudhary Mod and Ghantaghar. This project will also ease traffic on GT Road to Aligarh and it is being planned by IIT Roorkee.
