The great commute crisis: Delhi-Mumbai flight shorter than Delhi-Gurgaon drive | Gurgaon News
GURGAON/NEW DELHI: “I feel like I spend more time in my car than with my family,” says IT professional Nishant Srivastava, who travels between Gurgaon and Delhi daily. “I dread an evening flight from IGI these days,” says Ruchi Gupta, a Gurgaon resident for the last 10 years. “It takes me longer to get to the airport from my house on Golf Course Road Extension than to fly to Mumbai,” she adds.
It’s an exasperation shared by lakhs of people who commute between the two cities and have, over the years, seen Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway turn into a ‘crawl way’, with vehicle speeds in peak hours seldom going above 30kmph and traffic moving bumper-to-bumper for kilometres in stop-start motion.
The number of cars travelling between the two cities has increased exponentially from the time the expressway was opened in 2008 when the mantra was ‘live in Delhi, work in Gurgaon’. Nearly two decades on, that reality co-exists with the reverse – ‘live in Gurgaon, work in Delhi’. Traffic from Gurgaon to Delhi has soared for many reasons.
Primary is the exponential growth of Gurgaon itself, from a Census 2011 population of 15 lakh to current estimates of 30 lakh plus (the 2021 Census has still not been done, so there isn’t an exact figure). The city has also continued to grow as a corporate district, the spread of its office precincts not restricted to Cyber City and Udyog Vihar, but following a decentralised path to Sohna Road, 32nd Milestone, Golf Course Road and SPR.
Then there are the new high-speed roads – Sohna highway, the new Jaipur expressway (part of Delhi-Mumbai expressway), and Dwarka expressway – that lead to a convergence of traffic on Delhi-Gurgaon expressway (the erstwhile NH8). “The highway is way, way beyond capacity,” says Pankaj, who recently shifted to Gurgaon and works in central Delhi.
Double hurdle to Delhi
Add to this congested mix two major bottlenecks and that’s what you have today – a road that takes an eternity to cross. One is at the border, the MCD toll plaza for commercial vehicles that chokes several lanes as cabs stop to pay toll. Since toll collectors stop every car and scan the number plate for electronic payment, there are always queues there. And if a vehicle needs to recharge its balance, it can add several minutes to the wait time. Imagine this at peak hour, when hundreds of cabs are waiting to get into Delhi at the same time. The queues are long, tempers rising, and space available for the rest of the traffic to pass through getting more restricted.
“I’ve become so used to jams from Shankar Chowk (a km before toll gates at the border) that I’m always adding 45 minutes to an hour to my travel time. This gets very stressful when you have to do it the entire week,” says Rashi, an HR executive.
On the way from Gurgaon to Delhi, the misery doesn’t end when you cross the toll plaza. The jam that begins at Shankar Chowk continues till Mahipalpur – the boundaries of IGI airport – 9km away. Here, the bottleneck is caused by work on an interchange junction for the Dwarka Expressway that affects traffic on both sides. “The double whammy has virtually made the drive from Gurgaon to Delhi the worst I’ve seen,” says Pankaj, who is his 50s and has been working in Delhi throughout his career. “We say we need to take measures to improve our air quality. What about this daily congestion? There are two state govts – Delhi and Haryana – and the Centre, Supreme Court and Delhi High Court. Don’t they see this?” he asks.
Shailesh Ranjan, a resident of DLF-2, adds, “Travelling in the afternoon meant smooth sailing, but that’s past. The Delhi-Gurgaon expressway is clogged all day because of the ongoing construction and the toll. We need an extra hour in hand at least if we have to go to Delhi.”
CEO, his MNC shifting base
The CEO of a Fortune 500 American company told TOI he was in the process of moving to Delhi. Exasperated by the “daily predicament” of traffic jams, the company too is moving its base from Gurgaon to Aero City in Delhi.
“Reaching Gurgaon has been a big pain point for my staff, so we are moving to Aero City and into a bigger office. Traveling to Aero City from Gurgaon – which is just a few km – will take me around one hour or more, so I’m moving to Delhi too. This is a pain and is creating health problems for my staff,” the CEO, who did not wish to be named, said.
Seen as Mumbai’s challenger in its appeal to corporates, Gurgaon flourished because its plush office spaces, high-end real estate and location right next to IGI made the city very attractive to companies. This also drew in a huge population, making Delhi-Gurgaon expressway and the border crossing at Sirhaul, which was built for a 32-lane toll plaza that was dismantled in 2014, one of the busiest in the country, if not the busiest.
Path to Ggn choked too
The drive to Gurgaon from IGI is better because, unlike MCD, Haryana does not have toll booths at the border. But if one is driving to the Millennium City from south Delhi, the crawl begins from Dhaula Kuan and continues till Mahipalpur. The recent opening of the flyover connecting UER-II at Shiv Murti, which was expected to offer relief, has instead created a bottleneck, stretching traffic jams as far as Shankar Vihar in Delhi.
“The drive used to take an hour, but now, despite leaving early, I am often still late to work. Both the highway and service lanes see bumper-to-bumper traffic from Shankar Vihar to Shiv Murti in the morning. Spending nearly two hours in stop-and-go traffic is exhausting. By the time I get to work, I’m drained and the return trip to Janakpuri is worse,” says Reena Bharadwaj, a CA who travels daily from Cyber Hub to Janakpuri.
A National Highways Authority of India official said 25-30% of traffic has shifted to Dwarka Expressway, and once the entire expressway is operational – the Delhi section is not ready yet – it should significantly ease the load on Delhi-Gurgaon expressway. “We hope to complete it by the end of this year. However, the stretch from Shiv Murti to Bijwasan is expected to be completed by March, accounting for GRAP restrictions on construction. We understand the traffic challenges and hope to complete work soon,” said a senior NHAI official.
Noida to gain
Jams are a worry, with little on the drawing board to decongest Delhi-Gurgaon expressway. What the Delhi and Haryana govts could do to help is address the toll collection with urgency and take measures to immediately remove all bottlenecks on the expressway.
Failure to do so will make Noida – with better infrastructure, connectivity and a new international airport that will open next year – even more attractive to investors. And when a new company now looks to set up base in NCR, which city are they likely to choose? With UP govt aggressively pushing for new investment in Noida, Microsoft, Samsung, Dixon, TCS, Infosys, HDFC, S&P and Adani have all set up shop in Noida in recent years.
The commuting difficulty is among factors that has been pushing up real estate prices, and even rentals, in Gurgaon, despite is shabby civic infrastructure. “People who are working in Gurgaon have no option but to stay here to reach office on time. Otherwise, they have to begin as early 7am from Delhi or Noida to come here,” a real estate developer said. Daily traffic jams also mean both Gurgaon and south Delhi are in a perpetual pollution trap.
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