Dedicated Zones For Commuting And Vending Activities Being Mulled To Manage Pedestrian-Vehicle Conflict
Very few roads in the city depict commuter chaos better than NSC Bose Road. Amid heavy and unregulated vehicular movement, this commercial hub of George Town gest more than one lakh footfalls every day . At peak hours, the stretch has pedestrians, two-wheeler riders, parked vehicles and vendors jostling for space, if there was any left.
To make life easier, Chennai Corporation and the city traffic police have submitted to the Madras high court proposals to regulate traffic and control the parking chaos. This came after a public interest litigation filed in the court earlier this year said that there was no dedicated parking space available around a dozen popular restaurants across the city. The high court stated that there was a lack of discipline among all stakeholders -shopkeepers, vendors, pedestrians and vehicle users -prompting the two local bodies to take up NSC Bose Road as a pilot study. If the ideas are successful, it will be implemented at similar locations across the city. “We have been given three months to implement what we have proposed,“ said a senior official of the corporation.
The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) has helped the civic body and police to redesign a 700m stretch on the road from Rajaji Salai up to Flower Bazaar police station. After that the road becomes narrower increasing congestion up to Wall Tax Road, but officials said a study on it will be done later.
“From Parry's Corner up to Flower Bazaar, the road is congested even during non-peak hours,“ said Rajan P , who uses the road to go to Broadway for work. “The problem is with the encroachment and haphazardly parked vehicles.“
Near the Flower Bazaar po lice station, corporation had proposed a two-wheeler parking area in 2012 but the civic body continues to wait for a consultant as there are no takers for the project. However, urban planners debunk the idea of multistorey parking facilities as a failing model and say that the only solution to this critical is sue of street parking is good road design and enforcement.
Keeping the existing road infrastructure, ITDP has rearranged the traffic pattern demarcating exclusive lanes for walking, vending, parking and the carriageway. “Once the plan is executed, this road will be a game changer for the city in setting standards for street design,“ said Chennai's programme coordinator for ITDP Advait Jani.
In the present situation, the carriageway has people walking, driving, parking and vending in pandemonium. The idea to resolve this issue here is to manage within the available area through dedicated spaces for all the activities. “We wil convert the sides of the road into a formal non-motorised space,“ Jani said.
According to the plan, foot paths will come up on the ex treme sides of the road in both directions. Obstructions wil also be removed. Adjacent to the footpaths will be the vendor zone, next to which an area for parking has been allotted.
The demand for on-road parking during peak hours has b e e n f a i rly m e t t h ro u g h the design. “Once this is executed, there won't be any more pedestrian-vehicle conflict,“ Jani said.
It is a half-blessing for the 1.5km NSC Bose Road as a clear-cut proposal to develop 700m of the stretch has a definite shape now.
The road linking Rajaji Salai along the beach and Wall Tax Road abutting Central Railway sta tion has two limbs. The first one between Parrys Corner and Flower Bazaar police station is a virtual six-track stretch, which had shrunk to a two track carriageway due to rampant squatting, hawking, parking and other related menaces. The commercial area is choked by encroachments by both hawkers and squatters who have even put up shacks and semi-permanent structures to live there, said G Ganesan a trader having business in the area for more than three decades now.
“The Flower Bazaar police station corner has been virtually ceded to goods carriage owners who line up their mini-trucks and vans till the BSNL compound. Intermittently , you will see shacks and people rearing goats and chicken. Even the toilet campus there has been taken over by the shack dwellers who yell at people going anywhere near their homes,“ said M Antony Selvaraj, who has an office on Thambu Chetty Street.
“We thank the authorities. The pedestrians should be able to walk without fear. That is our minimum expectation from the corporation,“ said lawyer and author A Sirajudeen whose recent PIL made the corporation to come out with specifics of their NSC Bose Road revival plan. “They should first reclaim and then keep the road free from encroachments and hawker menace,“ he said.
Throughout the stretch, pavements have come under the occupation of commercial establishments, while road margins have been taken over by hawkers. This forces pedestrians to walk on the main carriage, battling it out with autorickshaws and MTC buses for space. “It is an unequal competition for space,“ Selvaraj said.
There is a notorious practice of shops and busi ness houses `reserving' parking spaces for themselves and their customers. “ Anyone leaving his vehicle there will find the tyres flat or scratches on vehicles,“ said Ganesan. “They claim ownership over parking space in front of them not apologeti cally , but with a lot of audacity .“
It was after all these pedestrian woes were high lighted that the high court nudged the corporation into coming out with a statement in mid-July that they had allocated Rs 4.7 crore for developing a footpath alone. Authorities told the first bench that encroachments on both sides would be removed and unauthorized structures would be razed.
