Kashmir Impulse Desk

Srinagar, April 1

Each morning in Srinagar, traffic builds before the day fully begins. 

Cars crawl through narrow corridors, school buses idle at packed intersections and commuters measure their routines in delays rather than distance.

Now, officials are placing their hopes on a single intervention – a flyover linking Rajbagh to Sangarmal – as a first step toward easing the congestion that has come to define daily life in the city.

Approved last week by the Jammu and Kashmir cabinet under Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, the project, estimated at about Rs 1.44 billion, is being presented as part of a broader shift toward more deliberate urban planning in the region’s summer capital.

The flyover is expected to pass above one of Srinagar’s most persistent choke points near the Presentation Convent footbridge, where heavy traffic converges and often stalls for long stretches. 

For many residents, the area is synonymous with bottlenecks that disrupt daily schedules.

The strain on the city’s roads has been growing for years. 

With more than 900,000 registered vehicles and roughly 75,000 new additions annually across the region, infrastructure has struggled to keep pace. 

For commuters, that imbalance translates into hours lost each day in some cases up to two hours navigating crowded roads.

“Traffic has become part of everyday life,” said Owais Ahmad, a commuter from Hyderpora. “But now it seems there is at least some effort to address it.”

Urban planners say that in densely built cities like Srinagar, expanding roads is often not feasible, making elevated corridors a practical alternative.

“Targeting specific bottlenecks can have an outsized impact,” said a senior public works official, noting that structural constraints limit large-scale road expansion.

The business community has welcomed the decision, saying that chronic congestion has long weighed on commercial activity by discouraging customers and slowing the movement of goods.

“When mobility improves, it affects everything – supply chains, customer access and overall efficiency,” said a local traders’ representative.

At the same time, the project has drawn scrutiny from environmental groups, which have raised concerns about its potential ecological impact and called for a more thorough review before construction begins.

The proposal has also sparked political debate, with the ruling party defending it as a necessary step to address a longstanding problem, while opposition leaders have questioned its planning and implications.

For now, the flyover remains in the planning stage, with detailed design and execution yet to begin. But in a city where congestion shapes daily routines, even the prospect of change has generated cautious optimism.

Whether that optimism translates into lasting relief may depend on whether the project becomes part of a wider effort to rethink how Srinagar moves.