Traffic on Vidyasagar Setu and on some of the city’s key arteries like Central Avenue and BT Road slowed down from Tuesday night with goods vehicles being diverted to facilitate repair of the country’s longest cable-stayed bridge.
Two lanes for Howrah-bound vehicles of Vidyasagar Setu have been barricaded for repair and maintenance of the bridge’s cables and goods vehicles are not being allowed, said a senior official of the Hooghly River Bridge Commissioners (HRBC). The lanes will remain barricaded for the next four months, the official said.
Police have drawn up a plan where goods vehicles that used to ply on the bridge have been diverted through different routes to BT Road, onward to Dunlop and then towards Howrah. Only buses and smaller vehicles are being allowed on the Setu now.
The diversion came into effect at 10pm on Tuesday when two of the three lanes of the Howrah-bound flank were barricaded for repairs. A lane has been carved out of the other flank to ensure at least two lanes are available for Howrah-bound traffic from Calcutta.
The barricading resulted in a slow-down of Howrah-bound vehicles. On Wednesday afternoon, buses carrying attendees of a political rally at Shahid Minar made the situation more challenging, the police said.
“Howrah-bound vehicles on the Setu are bound to move slowly because the road space has shrunk. The presence of several buses made it even more challenging on Wednesday afternoon. Our efforts are aimed at ensuring the movement doesn’t get stalled completely and vehicles don’t get tailed-up the bridge,” said an officer. “These are initial days of diversion. We had experienced similar glitches early into the diversion of vehicles during the Santragachhi bridge repair last November.”
As the diversion set in, a team of HRBC engineers and bridge experts from France took over the two lanes of the Setu on Tuesday night and began the work of replacing cables beneath the deck slab. The work will continue till April, they said.
In these four months, a similar exercise will be carried out on the Calcutta-bound flank, too, as part of a Rs 202-crore repair and maintenance project, an HRBC official said. Some of the bridge’s cables, which are visible from outside, will be replaced as well, the official said.
“Within 1.5 hours of goods vehicles being diverted, traffic along Central Avenue started slowing down. The impact continued well past midnight,” the police officer said.
The diversion plan involves a majority of Howrah-bound vehicles to move down Central Avenue, Jatindra Mohan Avenue and Shyambazar to Dunlop, before taking a left turn towards Dakshineswar.
Officers said vehicles on BT Road slowed down near the Dunlop rotary with trucks struggling to take a turn in the presence of smaller vehicles.
“We are working on ways to leave a part of the flank dedicated to heavy goods vehicles,” said an officer. “Things should ease up within a day or two.”