Poor plan makes JJ Flyover noisier

From hearing honking even in their sleeps to suffering from anxiety and severe headaches regularly, the traffic cops manning the busy and perennially chaotic junctions below the JJ Flyover claim that they are the worst victims of noise pollution.

Known for being the most noisiest roads the entire stretch below the JJ Flyover has four junctions including Nagpada, JJ hospital, Bhendi Bazaar and Mohammed Ali Road and all these junctions witness heavy pedestrian as well as vehicular movement. The problem only multiplies as a majority of motorists do not heed to traffic rules with bikers freely cutting lanes, honking continuously creating a cacophony.

"The traffic noise including all the loud honking keeps reverberating and gets amplified as the noise gets trapped under the flyover and has no escape from the sides too due to presence of buildings and the roads being narrow," shared Sumaira Abdulali, Convenor of Awaaz Foundation adding that the maximum noise level recorded at JJ hospital junction during the survey was 103.3dB while that at Minara Masjid junction was 102.2dB.

As per Abdulali while the traffic cops were the worst hit, others like shopkeepers operating along the stretch as well as residents living close to these junctions along with pedestrians too were at high risk of being exposed to such levels of noise for a prolonged period.

"It was bad planning. No one thought about the noise that will echo under the flyover and did not plan for any noise insulators or mitigation measures in advance but seeing the situation turning from bad to worse and so many people at risk authorities need to work out measures that can be taken to reduce noise pollution at some of these junctions," she said.

Abdul Khan a resident near Minara Masjid said that residents from the area were so tired of the continuous honking that they even carried out awareness sessions at some of these junctions where children stood with placards requesting motorists not to honk. "Some of the residents even met with traffic police asking for stricter traffic management but unfortunately neither the motorists nor the traffic cops seem to be doing anything that will bring about a change and people are suffering," he said.

A constable posted who did not wished to be identified said, "Most of us actually hear honking when we sleep and once we tell this to our seniors they feel we are giving excuses. Manning this junction is almost like a punishment due to chaotic traffic and continuous honking. We are sure that many of us who have been serving here for longer period would surely have some loss in hearing," he said.

'Redesigning could help'

Well planned junctions with proper pedestrian crossings, lane markings and effectively managed traffic movement can help in bringing down high noise levels at some of these junctions considerably,  believe  urban transport experts.

Transport expert Ashok Datar of Mumbai Environment Social Network (MESN), said that Mumbai has some of the worst managed traffic junctions, which neither have proper lane marking nor safe passage for pedestrian resulting in utter chaos.

"People jaywalk even as traffic is moving and also at most of these junctions, vehicles criss-cross without following the traffic lights and since everyone is in hurry, motorists resort to continuous honking making these traffic junction noisier," he said adding that a majority of honking happens at such junctions and not on a linear road despite it having long traffic  pile ups .

Datar has been suggesting in various seminars as well as talks that the traffic department should take up a couple of junctions and re-design them completely with help of transport experts. "A pilot project can be carried out to be seen if proper changes help in reducing the noise levels and this can be then gradually implemented at other junctions too," he said.

A senior police official who was earlier posted with the Traffic department said that they had planned such model junctions few years back but while it was implemented at some of the locations in South Mumbai at other places it never saw the light of the day. "After discussion with transport experts we had decided on proper lane markings, stop lines and zebra crossings but unfortunately we did not receive the co-operation we expected from BMC as they are  incharge  of the road markings," said the official adding that its unfortunate that BMC's  lan  marking and zebra crossing cannot last even six months.