Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)
Mangaluru, Oct 29: Under the Smart City, various projects running into crores of rupees are being implemented in the city. However, the development projects many a time are found to have been executed in an unscientific manner. People claim that because of this, traffic problems keep occurring.
The road dividers which existed between Clock Tower and Rao & Rao circle have been cleared. This has given rise to reckless, high speed driving on the road which keeps causing accidents. Innocent lives are lost. As dividers between Hamilton Circle and Rao & Rao circle have been removed, the city buses are parked in the middle of the road. This is creating problems in the movement of other vehicles and traffic chaos happens.
In the past, city buses were stopped on one side of the road and other vehicles could smoothly move about on the other side. But now the road is occupied as parking space for other vehicles, buses, street vendors etc, giving rise to bottlenecks in traffic frequently.
People arriving at the State Bank by buses are finding it hard to cross the road and going to the buses which they want to catch. When there were road dividers, those crossing the road could easily do so. But now, because the city buses move at high speed, the area is posing dangers. Unless precautions are taken to streamline the traffic, accidents like the one which happened here on March 10, 2008, in which two pedestrians were crushed by a bus, might recur.
Thousands of commuters visit the State Bank area everyday but there are no bus shelters for the passengers. They have to stand by the roadside, braving dust, sunshine, wind and rain. The local administration which is expected to attend to people's problems has turned a blind eye. A few months back, the city buses were allowed to go near the service bus shelters but the bus owners had opposed the move.
Mayor Premananda Shetty said that there are plans to expand the service bus stand at State Bank and allow service, city, and government buses to park there. He said that once this happens, traffic density on Hamilton Road to Rao & Rao circle will be considerably less.