Bhopal’s infrastructure gasping for air as VEHICLE SURGE EXPLODES

 

 

 

MADHYA Pradesh’s capital is rapidly hurtling toward a massive transportation breakdown. As the city’s geographical limits exhaust their capacity for road expansion, an uncontrolled surge in vehicle numbers has brought the existing infrastruc ture to its knees. In just the last three years, approximately four lakh new vehicles have been added to the city’s fleet, pushing the vehicle-per-square-meter density to alarming levels and making smooth transit a thing of the past. A deep dive into recent statis tics reveals that Bhopal’s roads are currently burdened by near ly 20 lakh vehicles, dominated by 14 lakh two-wheelers and 5 lakh private cars. The situation is further exacerbated by ‘unfit’ vehicles whose official registra tions have expired.

 

These vehicles not only clog traffic but pose significant environmental and safety risks. Recent joint opera tions by the municipal corpora tion and Traffic Police resulting in the seizure of hundreds of such vehicles underscore the rampant violation of registration norms. Prime commercial hubs like New Market and MP Nagar have reached a breaking point. Large sections of primary roads have been surrendered to permanent and temporary parking, turning arterial routes into narrow lanes. The crisis is even more acute in the residential pockets of the Old City, where a severe lack of park ing space frequently leads to violent altercations and neigh bourhood disputes. While recent flyovers were intended to facilitate long-dis tance travel, their massive pil lars and support structures have significantly reduced the width of the surface-level roads below.

 

This has created bottlenecks at critical junctions. Areas such as the Subhash Nagar underpass, Koh-e-Fiza, and Karond are prime examples where the remaining road width is inca pable of handling heavy volumes, making hours-long jams during peak hours a routine occurrence. Furthermore, ongoing con struction for the Metro Rail proj ect has temporarily obstructed several key transit routes. Additional DCP (Traffic) Basant Kaul highlighted that the annual addition of over 1.25 lakh vehicles is a figure the current road network is simply not designed to absorb. He emphasised that the continued presence of expired vehicles is deepening the crisis.