If the authorities managing Cubbon Park, one of the last big lung spaces in the city, had their way, you would not be able to drive through the park any longer.
However, the city traffic police shot down the proposal, terming it “impractical”, after which the Horticulture Department came up with another proposal to ban traffic inside Cubbon Park during weekends and public holidays. The traffic police are now considering closing the park area for traffic only on Sundays. The first trial run on closing Cubbon Park for traffic will be on April 26.
Mahantesh Murgod, Deputy Director of Horticulture Department (Cubbon Park), told The Hindu that traffic inside the park area was quite high, leading to air and noise pollution. He said that while they preferred a total ban of traffic in the park on the lines of Lalbagh, they were working with the traffic police to figure out a balance. A total traffic ban, making the park area a pedestrian zone, was part of the proposal by the Cubbon Park Management Authority, which did not materialise as the proposal was shot down by the government.
Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) B. Dayananda told The Hindu , “If we close the area for traffic, then it will cause traffic snarls in the surrounding areas. Anyway on Sundays, more people visit Cubbon Park and there is relatively less traffic. We may consider it,” he said. He was, however, non-committal on its continuation.
Cubbon Park is a major traffic corridor in the city centre which logs in a high Passenger Car Equivalent (PCU) of 2,000 during peak hours. Traffic expert M.N. Srihari told The Hindu that closing down the park area for traffic would force vehicles to loop along Nrupatunga Road, Hudson Circle, and Kasturba Road and then take a left to reach M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, which he termed non-feasible.
The park area is also a major parking hub in the city centre and a ban on parking would lead to a lot of traffic chaos in surrounding areas, traffic police said.
