In the heart of the national capital, and a key transit hub, Kashmere Gate Inter-State Bus Terminal (ISBT), has become a living metaphor for Robert Frost’s iconic poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ during peak morning and evening hours. The roads leading to and from this busy hub mirror Frost’s “two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” but with one grim distinction, neither is less traveled.

Known for its proximity to the ISBT, Metro station, and several arterial roads, the area becomes a bottleneck as thousands of vehicles converge daily. The congestion, particularly during the morning and evening rush hours, is exacerbated by the sheer volume of buses, cars, and two-wheelers running on limited road space. The situation turned from bad to worse earlier this week when pollution levels in the national capital reached unprecedented levels, with very poor visibility, especially during morning hours.

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“It takes me nearly 30 minutes to cross a stretch that should ideally take five minutes,” said Ramesh Verma, a resident of Civil Lines who commutes via this area daily, while another commuter, Ramesh lamented, “It takes almost an hour to cover a distance of merely three kilometers from Old Delhi gate to Kashmere Gate”.

The traffic snarls at Kashmere Gate are attributed to a combination of factors. The presence of the ISBT, one of North India’s largest interstate bus terminals, results in a constant flow of buses entering and exiting the area.

Lala Hardev Marg, which serves as the main thoroughfare in front of Kashmere Gate metro station and the ISBT, where a flyover from East Delhi areas like Shahdara and Dilshad Garden merges. Netaji Subhash Marg, which links Kashmere Gate to Chandni Chowk and Daryaganj, frequently faces severe congestion due to narrow lanes and encroachments by autos and e-rickshaws being parked on the roadsides.

Another significant traffic bottleneck is the stretch between ISBT Kashmere Gate and the Chandgi Ram Akhara junction. Similarly, the Nityanand Marg section, connecting to the Tis Hazari Court, often experiences traffic snarls. Despite the sharp rise in the number of vehicles around Kashmere Gate, the state of roads and traffic management in the area remains largely unchanged.

However, the biggest contributor which causes traffic disruption is the presence of ISBT, wherein buses from North Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh, arrive with tourists and mainly, they stop outside the ISBT gate to deboard passengers.

This results in the encroachment of roads from auto-rickshaw drivers who wait for the passengers from these buses on the roadside resulting in the road being reduced to a single lane, putting brakes on the accelerator of vehicles.

Moreover, during the evening, private buses operating on various tourist destinations such as Manali, Kullu, Shimla, Jaipur among others also pickup the passengers from the main road. These buses, ranging from luxury to ordinary categories, do not enter the ISBT and they create long traffic queues because of stopping on the road side and blocking a whole lane.

When the reporter went to the area, it was found that most of the auto-rickshaws were parked on the roadside and the designated pickup point had no rickshaw. Additionally, recovery vans from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) were standing idle, hardly taking away the vehicles parked on the roadside.