Ride to Delhi Airport Gets Signal Free
In a bid to decongest route between Delhi’s Dhaula Kuan and the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on July 12 inaugurated the second three-lane underpass at Parade Road junction on the National Highway-8 (NH-8). Earlier in February this year, an underpass connecting Mahipalpur Bypass and Aerocity became operational. Both of these projects are a part of a signal-free corridor that starts from Dhaula Kuan interchange and ends at the IGI Airport.
The project, which started in March last year, is being developed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) at an estimated cost of Rs 270 crore.
The project includes widening of Dhaula Kuan-IGI corridor from six lanes to eight, a three-lane flyover from Janakpuri road merging with the NH-8 and two vehicular underpasses and a foot-over bridge for pedestrians at different points along the corridor. While the 135-metre underpass at Mahipalpur bypass helps skip the congestion at Mahipalpur Village and cut down the long detour to enter the airport premises, the other roads ease the traffic flow from Vasant Kunj, Dhaula Kuan and Gurugram. The underpasses also provide swift connectivity to the traffic coming from the south of Delhi as commuters will now be able to avoid Dhaula Kuan and Rao Tula Ram Marg.
The Delhi airport is the seventh busiest airport in Asia, and among the top-20 busiest airports in the world. Accessing the busiest airport in India is no easy job either. In a study of 60 airports by the School of Planning and Architecture last year that examined their “accessibility” by car, the Delhi airport was placed at the bottom of the list. The average car speed in the 25-kilometre radius of the airport was also lowest in the national capital, the study found.