Some out of the box thinking is required for improving transportation and lowering carbon levels in an evolving city like Visakhapatnam, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry D. Purandeswari has said.
Addressing a workshop on Low Carbon Mobility Plan (LCMP) organised by iTrans of IIT, Delhi, and GVMC here on Monday, she said multi-level parking, making cycling more attractive, zoning for autos and solar-powered autos were some of the options that could be considered. For such purposes, if required, World Bank can be approached for funding.
Glamourising public transport and improving it, not shifting people from the core area to suburban areas, developing Anakapalle-Anandapuram State highway to prevent plying of heavy vehicles in the city were some of the other suggestions she made.
Mrs. Purandeswari, however, disagreed with team leader Anvita Arora and said a flyover was needed at NAD Kotha Road. Though India was ahead in multipurpose land use, reducing carbon footprint in a developing country was not an easy task, she observed adding carbon dioxide emissions were more from vehicular pollution though it was generally blamed on PSUs.
Municipal Commissioner M.V. Satyanarayana said the study was taken up under a UN Environment Programme and the city was the first to sign a MoU with UNEP. The objective of the present study was to suggest measures for long-term strategy for comfortable mobility of all modes with low carbon emissions.
‘BRTS a failure’
Pointing out the complexities, he said 80 per cent of the population lived in the core area of 111 sq km of the 634 sq km of the city and 44 per cent of the population lived in 686 slums.
MLA Tyanala Vijay Kumar suggested that alternative roads should be laid and said there was a feeling that BRTS was a failure with lack of parking and roads getting congested in commercial areas.
Police Commissioner B. Shivadhar Reddy said 73 km of 900 km of National Highway ran through the city resulting in high number of accidents though it was being brought down over the last three years. At 500 points signal lights would be installed.
Truck terminals, erecting FOBs, limiting the number of autos and providing parking for them were the other suggestions he made.
Outer ring road
VUDA Vice-Chairman N. Yuvaraj suggested that an outer ring road acting as growth corridor was under consideration. Also in the master plan a road from Dabbanga to Gopalapatnam was mooted to cut down distance.
Ravi Gadepalli of iTrans made a presentation on the methodology used for the study that started in June, 2012.
District Collector S. Arokiaraj, GVMC Additional Commissioners S. Janaki and K. Ramesh and Prof. RV Rama Rao participated.
