Strategic road plan no answer to traffic woes
With the National Green Tribunal likely to pronounce it’s judgment on the axing of trees at KBR Park and the Strategic Road Development Plan any time now, a study by the city-based Human Rights & Consumer Protection Cell (HRCPC - trust) concludes that the SRDP is not the solution to the city’s traffic problems.
Building more flyovers will not unclog the roads or ease the traffic flow. What will be of more use is to widen roads, have more pedestrian crossings and footpaths and separate lanes for different types of vehicles. Flyovers will only further cramp the road infrastructure, said the affidavit submitted to the National Green Tribunal by HRCPC.
Thakur Raj Kumar, who is the seventh respondent in the suo motu cases against the state government, filed before the NGT, said, “The current traffic situation is a result of decades of adopting a flawed approach of attempting to facilitate movement of private vehicles. The SRDP continues this approach.”
He said in his affidavit that the comprehensive transport study conducted by the GHMC recommends 28 flyovers (10 in the peripheral area and 18 in the core area), by 2021. “This recommendation is based on the minimum guidelines put forth by the Indian Roads Congress in 1985 (IRC-92). The recommendations are more than 30 years old and only serve as minimum requirements.”
His affidavit further says that three of the 28 intersections where flyovers have been recommended were not even a part of the initial investigations. “A thorough study of the Comprehensive Transport Study (CTS) document has revealed that no other technical analysis for need, feasibility, viability or long-term benefits of these flyovers was conducted. Two of these three intersections are around the KBR Park as part of the SRDP project. This fact further proves that the recommendations made by the CTS study are not well-founded,” Mr Kumar said.
In the affidavit he pointed to the pay and park concept: “Another contradiction to its goals is in the area of parking pricing. CTS rightly states that the National Urban Transportation Policy recommends that parking should not be subsidised and that all parkings be charged at true commercial rates. And, yet, an abysmally low fee of `20 per car per day and `5 per 2-wheeler per day has been fixed while estimating parking revenue. In this context, it is important to note that a parking fee of `20 per hour is already prevalent in the city—this showcases another area where the plan doesn’t tie reality into its obscenely voluminous report.”