Commuters in a spot of bother
Most of the crossings and roundabouts in the state capital are poorly designed, accident prone and require restructuring, say experts
* A speeding truck rammed into a Roadways bus at Samtamulak crossing in Gomti Nagar on Tuesday morning, resulting in injuries to over 20 people and death of one passenger.
* Eyewitnesses cited poor road engineering as the reason behind the accident. They said the roundabout’s design is faulty as people cannot see vehicles coming from the opposite side.
LUCKNOW: But have the officials made some plan to stop such incidents in future?
As per the Indian Road Congress’ data, more than 26,000 accidents take place in UP every year while the national and state road safety council documented 973 spots in the state vulnerable to accidents in 2013. In Lucknow, 57 spots were marked as vulnerable, said Akhtar Ali Farooqi, patron of UP State Engineers’ Association.
He said most of the crossings and roundabouts in the city are poorly designed, accident prone and require restructuring.
“In UP, politicians and bureaucrats interfere in designing of even a small road. Here, roundabouts are designed according to political whims and fancies. There is no need for huge roundabouts like Samtomoolak Chowk, 1090 crossing, Avadh Rotary, Ecogarden Banglabazar or Subhash Chandra Bose roundabout in Ganj. These roundabouts are just for making a political statement and not about public safety and smooth traffic movement,” he said.
These roundabouts are too big and commuters cannot see the traffic across them. Secondly, people get lesser time to react as vehicles come in front of each other all of a sudden – as had happened in the case of the bus-truck collision, said Farooqi.
“Ideally, engineers should take a call on designing of crossings, like in western countries, where they develop small traffic islands instead of huge roundabouts,” said Ashutosh Soti, road safety activist and president of Shubham Soti Foundation.
He emphasised: “District road safety councils must be made functional at the local level. There must be regular meetings of the council and state officials to make our city safe for commuters.”
However, Farooqi feels if the state has the will these spots can be improved by some engineering alterations.
“Some engineers will have to come up with safe designs to make these spots safe for commuters,” he said.
Arun Kumar Mishra, chief town and country planner (CTCP), said: “The CTCP is not consulted for any roundabouts and crossings. Our job is to prepare master plan for cities keeping the future population explosion in mind. Designs of most of the roundabouts and crossings are finalised by engineers and Central Road Research Institute, Roorkee, so it’s up to them to ensure that the crossings and roundabouts are as per norms.”
Mishra feels there is a lot of scope for research by the traffic department and civic officials to analyse the structure of roundabouts.
SK Jain, city engineer, Lucknow Municipal Corporation, said: “The crossings are tweaked, if required. But all the roundabouts are not vulnerable. Sometimes it’s also for the traffic cops to ensure smooth flow of traffic, like on 1090 and Samtamoolak crossings.”
He said traffic at these big crossings can be controlled with the help of traffic signals and cops.
› Engineers should take a call on designing of crossings, like in western countries, where they develop small traffic islands instead of huge roundabouts. ASHUTOSH SOTI, road safety activist