The contention of a number of urban planners and experts at a roundtable held in the city is straight and critical of the expensive projects undertaken so far for smooth commuting in the capital city. They are of the opinion that mega projects like flyovers have failed to deliver the goods. Even the metro rail which will take time for construction and operation is not an obvious choice when more immediate options have been ignored, they claim. Clearly, the urban experts have rightly pointed out the weak junctures. That chaos reigns supreme in traffic movement is evident to naked eyes. Why? The primary reason is the failure to establish the right to road space and footpaths by transports and pedestrians in an orderly manner. Footpaths and roads within the city limit do not belong to pedestrians and vehicles respectively. Footpaths are illegally occupied by hawkers and different other agencies, forcing pedestrians to walk on the streets. Then footpaths are not spacious enough or there are no such facilities at all along some streets.
So the areas where actions are needed are not unidentified. Now there is need for a strong political will. An effective programme is needed for returning footpaths to pedestrians. This will warrant eviction of hawkers, without which the snowballing effects of the problem of disorder will spill over to the city's roads and streets. Some areas have to be restricted to either vehicles or pedestrians or both. The free-for-all attitude by pedestrians, passengers and transport operators needs to be controlled strictly. Recovering the footpath and expansion or construction of the same where it is narrow or non-existent will free the road space entirely for traffic movement. The fact that bus stops with passenger sheds are a thing of the past is no longer recognised. This makes the matter even worse.
Now the mega projects are diverting attention from these apparently small matters. But these small matters actually add up together to make the matter complex and unbearable. A large part of the tailback in the city can be done away with if attention is given to these small details. There are provisions for creation of by-lanes for rickshaws or turning a few into such facilities in order to take the pressure off from the main streets. Flyovers depositing vehicles at the end point must have spaces and arteries of roads for their quick disposal. This has not happened and it has only made the situation worse. So there is a need for creation of such by-lanes, wherever possible within the vicinity of the deposit points.
As for execution of such plans, the various stake-holders, some of whom remain unseen but pull the string from behind, must be neutralised first. The political leadership alone can do this. It must realise that there is no alternative to enforcing discipline in the capital's -or for that matter any city's - roads and streets. All must be given to understand that the work hours wasted daily are dragging the nation from behind and its adverse impact on commuters' physical and mental health is stupendous. The nation becomes a loser.
