THE BACKGROUND
About four years ago, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and the Pune traffic police proposed converting Jangli Maharaj Road and Fergusson College Road into one-way streets. The primary purpose of this was to increase the average speed of vehicles which had become very slow and was leading to congestion.
NGOs working on the issue of traffic in the city had opposed the proposal on following grounds:
1) For roads inside the city, traffic safety was of greater importance than speed of vehicles.
2) The PMC and the traffic police were merely trying to solve the problems of auto vehicles: majority of them personal vehicles, and did not seem to understand that Non-Motorised-Transport (NMT) was also part of “Traffic”. These, comprising pedestrians and cyclists, were in fact the most vulnerable category of road users most vulnerable to road accidents and hence their safety and convenience should be of paramount concern of PMC and the police.
3) One-way roads are bad for public transport as bus commuters need to travel in both directions.
The NGOs proposed that if the roads were to be converted into oneways at all, the PMC should use this opportunity to put in place wide footpaths, cycle tracks and bus lanes (possible if parking on one side of the road was removed) and also provide a shuttle bus moving along the one-way rotary that will not only help bus commuters, but also discourage people from bringing their personal vehicles when visiting JM and FC roads for shopping or going to restaurants. Additional and safer pedestrian crossings with wide zebra stripes were also proposed.
THE CURRENT SITUATION
Although the PMC and traffic police agreed to all the measures, they were never implemented, with the result that initial fears about one-way have come true and everyone is now agreed that both these roads now pose serious problems for public transport, non-motorised transport and pedestrians in particular. At the same time, the initial objective of reducing congestion has also not been achieved as the increased speed of vehicles has made travel on these roads most unsafe.
THE SOLUTION
The problem created on these two roads is indicative of the larger malaise inherent in the outdated traffic vision of our city’s decision makers. Congestion, pollution, accidents, destruction of heritage and loss in “quality of life” in cities dominated by personal auto vehicles can only be tackled by encouraging public transport, non-motorised transport and creation of streets which are for people rather than conduits for auto vehicles.
The recent decision by traffic police to ban parking on one side of the road on FC road is an example of desperately trying to tackle traffic chaos going out of control. The traffic police should impose a ban on parking vehicles on the left side of the road and paint a bus lane, which should not be invaded. A rotary shuttle bus service could be started on the two roads, so that people park their vehicles elsewhere and move by buses. Also, the bylanes opening onto the main roads should be closed and a cycle track created.
The road dividers have been removed, which makes it difficult for people to cross the wide road at a stretch. In the absence of pedestrian signals,pedestrian crossings are needed at intermittent points, along with proper lights at night.
PMC has simply implemented one way on these two major roads in the city without putting in place any of the infrastructure and systems needed to make the one-way scheme safe and convenient for all road users. Senior citizens, ladies and children are the worst sufferers.