Ghaziabad: National Highways Authority of India plans to open new turns at two points along NH-9, at Dasna and near Manipal Hospital, to ease congestion where traffic from Delhi merges with cars heading to the city. Officials said the junctions will free up road space and cut traffic pressure at both spots.The Dasna stretch of NH-9 carries about 3 lakh passenger car units a day, while the Delhi Meerut Expressway carries more than 60,000 passenger car units.An NHAI official said the plan is to merge the service lane to create more space at both junctions while adding turns to divert vehicles. Work on the Dasna stretch is nearly complete and is expected to be operational by Sept 15, the official said, adding that work near Manipal Hospital will begin soon.The U-turn from NH-9 towards the city is narrow, and DME traffic merging with NH-9 there causes jams that spill back onto the expressway. NHAI plans to widen the U-turn by 15 metres to give heavy vehicles enough turning radius to clear the backlog, the official said, adding that an additional NH-9 lane will be built at the same stretch by merging the service lane.A second bottleneck forms on the Delhi side of NH-9, where Hapur-bound traffic merges with city-side traffic through an underpass. NHAI plans to close the underpass, the official said. City-side traffic will instead move on NH-9 towards Hapur and take a U-turn near Dasna to rejoin NH-9 on the Delhi side. Traffic arriving from Hapur via NH-9 will be allowed to take a U-turn near Bamheta, the official said.At stretches near Dasna where NH-9 and the Delhi Meerut Expressway are not physically separated, NHAI will install concrete barriers to keep the two carriageways apart, the official added.
