Poor signal visibility, missing road markings and weak enforcement continue to undermine Reserve Bank Pachali junction
At the five-way crossing near the Reserve Bank of India building, where Station Road, College Hostel Road and Lakshminath Bezbaruah Road converge onto the busy Gopinath Bordoloi Road, a set of new traffic lights was expected to bring order to one of the city's busiest junctions. Six months after they were switched on, commuters, students and even the city's own traffic department admit the intersection remains as chaotic as ever, with many saying it has become even more confusing than before.
ALSO READ: Dog Theft Cases Across Assam Reveal Suspected Organised Illegal Network
Gopinath Bordoloi Road is a major route for city buses travelling to and from Jalukbari, Adabari, Maligaon, Khanapara and Beltola, carrying thousands of commuters through the junction every day. The crossing also sees a steady stream of pedestrians emerging from the railway station on Station Road and hundreds of students walking to and from Cotton University along College Hostel Road. On paper, it is the kind of high-volume, multi-directional junction where traffic signals should improve both traffic flow and pedestrian safety. On the ground, however, the system is falling short.
The most obvious problem is that several of the traffic lights are difficult to see. At different approaches to the junction, low-hanging tree branches and a web of electricity and telephone cables obscure the signal heads, leaving approaching motorists with little time to react. One signal near the Kamakhya Temple direction board is barely visible through the foliage, while another facing College Hostel Road has its red and amber lights almost completely hidden by branches, with only part of the countdown timer visible.
There is little indication that the trees were trimmed or the overhead cables cleared before the signals were installed, and no visible maintenance appears to have been carried out since. As a result, drivers approaching the intersection often do not have a clear view of the signals until they are almost beneath them.
The confusion continues on the road itself. Despite the installation of traffic lights, the junction has no stop lines, lane markings or pedestrian crossings. Without stop lines indicating where vehicles should halt, motorists stop wherever they think is appropriate when the signal turns red, often blocking the path of vehicles moving from other directions.
A traffic police booth stands in the middle of the intersection, but it remains unoccupied even during busy periods, leaving the signal system to operate without any manual regulation when traffic builds up.
Congestion is made worse by the way public transport vehicles use the junction. Although the designated city bus stop is barely 50 metres away, buses routinely stop within the intersection itself to pick up and drop passengers. Shared taxis, autorickshaws and cycle-rickshaws often do the same, turning the signal-controlled junction into an informal transport stop. Vehicles quickly pile up behind them, and congestion spreads across all five approaches.
For those who use the junction every day, the problems are impossible to miss.
"The traffic was better before the traffic lights were installed," one regular commuter told GPlus. "Now the lights are very confusing. Everyone is going everywhere. It's total chaos."
A student residing in a nearby university said crossing the road during the evening rush has become increasingly difficult. "The constant honking is a pain in the head. It is a nightmare for us to cross the road in the evening," the student said. "If you somehow cross the road without getting hit by a vehicle, the honking will surely make your ears bleed."
Irfan, a senior student at Cotton University, raised a further concern: the basic safety of students crossing the road to reach the campus. Without a marked pedestrian crossing, those travelling between the hostel area and the university are left to weave through buses, auto rickshaws and two-wheelers, while vehicles stop unpredictably across the intersection, leaving pedestrians with no clearly defined space to cross.
The traffic police are not unaware of the situation. A local traffic official acknowledged that congestion at the junction is a daily occurrence and becomes particularly severe during the evening rush hour. The official also identified buses and other commercial vehicles stopping within the intersection as one of the main reasons traffic backs up at the crossing.
When approached by GPlus, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Guwahati, also acknowledged that congestion does occur at the junction, and stated there are no current plans to address it.
That admission is likely to concern residents as much as the traffic itself. The junction's problems are neither complex nor expensive to address. Clearly marked stop lines and pedestrian crossings, trimmed tree canopies and cleared overhead cabling around the signal heads, enforcement of the existing bus stop located just 50 metres away, and the deployment of a traffic constable at the currently vacant booth in the middle of the intersection would address many of the concerns raised by commuters and students. None of these measures require new infrastructure; they simply require the authorities to make use of what has already been built and installed.
The Reserve Bank Panchali junction reflects an increasingly familiar pattern in Guwahati: solutions are announced and infrastructure is installed, but the supporting measures needed to make them effective; road markings, unobstructed signal visibility, enforcement, and on-ground traffic management are never fully implemented. Until the Guwahati Traffic Police move beyond acknowledging the problem and begin addressing these gaps, the signals at this junction will continue to cycle through red, amber and green over an intersection that, by their own admission, remains without a concrete plan for improvement.