Of late, has commuting around Vidhana Soudha and the central part of the city causing inane delays? Your experience is now backed by findings, as a study conducted by an NGO found the average speed of traffic flow in the central business district around Vidhana Soudha is at a snail's pace of 9.2 kmph during peak hours.
Over the last nine years, the speed has been in steep decline. While in 2005, the average speed in the area was 35 kmph, it dropped to 20 kmph in 2010 and further to 9.2 kmph in 2014, studies conducted by the Consortium of Traffic Engineers and Safety Trainers, has revealed, explaining the cause for your increased commuting time and the traffic mess.
“The study was undertaken as a private initiative in June 2014 to make recommendations to the government about the feasibility of imposing a road congestion tax in the central part of the city,” said traffic expert M.N. Srihari, who conducted the study. He said that imposing congestion tax was the way out, but there is no technology to auto-record all vehicles entering these roads, and hence the proposal is unfeasible.
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Mr. Srihari further said the study, when seen in the context of similar studies of earlier years, echoed the failure of traffic control measures taken up in the central part of the city as well as on roads leading to the central part of the city, down the years. He also added the ever burgeoning vehicle population as compared to the fixed capacity of the streets, also added to the chaos on the streets.
Among the 12 roads studied, Sheshadri Road leading to K.R. Circle recorded the least speed of less than seven km/hr, which experts term as ‘jam-speed’. Mr. Srihari said that provision of a bus lane is the only way out to decongest the road.
Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) B Dayananda refused to comment on the survey as he said it was a private survey in which the city traffic police was not involved.
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