Traffic police have painted yellow boxes across the Hill Road junction in a bid to regulate vehicular flow
Don’t just watch out for the red light when you are driving past the Hill Road junction, popularly known as the Lucky Restaurant junction, in Bandra (west). Look out for the yellow boxes as well, painted on the road across the junction.
The traffic control branch of Mumbai Police has painted those yellow boxes to regulate the vehicular flow at one of the most chaotic crossings of the city. Ensure that your car is not caught static in that yellow painted zone, failing which, the cops might see red and fine you.
The yellow box junction (YBJ) concept is in vogue in many European cities. Mumbai is the first Indian city to try it out. If the pilot project at the Hill Road junction succeeds, traffic police would start painting the other chaotic junctions, such as Mahim, Haji Ali and Metro, yellow. Some other junctions shortlisted are Air India at Nariman Point, CST area, Shiv Sena Bhavan at Shivaji Park, and Shoppers’ Stop at Andheri.
What should you do to ensure that you don’t violate the YBJ code of conduct? Just make sure that you don’t encroach into the yellow boxes unless you are sure that your car will go past the painted zone unhindered. If there is no empty carriageway across the demarcated zone, don’t venture into it even if the signal is green for you.
“The idea of YBJ is to ensure that vehicles don’t block the junction,” said Harish Baijal, deputy commissioner of police (Traffic). “It’s a common practice for drivers to try and squeeze past a crossing even after the signal has turned against them.
When a driver going from north to south does that, he invariably runs into the east-west traffic, which by then had been given the green signal, and halt traffic flow in every direction. The yellow boxes on the road clearly demarcate the point beyond which a driver should not venture unless the signal is green and the traffic ahead of him is moving.”
Jayant Sarmukadam, senior inspector of police and in-charge Bandra Traffic Division, said, “The Hill Road junction is one of the busiest in the city. It serves as a vital link between the island city and the extended suburbs.
During peak hours, lakhs of vehicles go past the junction. With construction work of Santa Cruz flyover choking up the Western Express Highway, more and more motorists are using the Hill Road junction.”
Once the yellow box succeeds at the Bandra junction, the traffic department plans to implement it at various such junctions in the city, which are prone to similar pile-ups.
