Corporation to employ ‘traffic calming techniques’

Focus will be on designing city for people and not for vehicles

The Chennai Corporation has decided to use a comprehensive range of ‘traffic calming techniques’ on city roads.

The techniques to be implemented as per the norms of the Indian Road Congress will ensure a calm neighbourhood for many residents and assist the Traffic Police.

Residents’ associations will play a role in deciding the range of techniques to be implemented in their neighbourhood. The engineering aspects include optimising the width of roads, commissioning of speed breakers and placing signages.

“The new code of practice will also cover design principles for road cross section, intersection, markings,” said a Corporation official.

“The emphasis will be on designing the city for people and not for vehicles. So our new street design will reflect such realities,” he added.

The design of the roads will facilitate reduction in the number of road accidents. The techniques will meet the needs of the vulnerable people, especially persons with disability, children and the elderly.

Various measures were taken by the Corporation last year after the son of a Minister died in a motorcycle accident at a speed breaker on NSC Bose Road.

The civic body asked officials to take remedial measures on all the roads where accidents were reported due to poorly-designed speed breakers.

Zonal officers were asked to identify unauthorised speed breakers across the 200 wards for redesign. Such efforts, however, have not been successful yet.

Many accident-prone spots without adequate illumination, wide roads without proper markings, inadequate signages and pedestrian facilities have been identified. The civic body, with the support of other agencies, will soon conduct a study on such spots for a complete makeover.

According to IRC standards, the shape of a road hump must be parabolic, the central height must not exceed 10 centimetres and the width must be at least 3.7 metres. It must be painted in a ‘V’ shape and made visible by solar cat’s eyes. Reflective paint signs must be placed 40 meters in advance, mentioning the desired speed at which the road hump can be negotiated. Most such spots on bus routes and interior roads are yet to have such features.