Chock-a-block, what to do?

Ishrat Singh Banwait

If one wants to witness the worst traffic situation in the city beautiful, now is the time. With the festive season already there, Chandigarh’s roads are choked. Lack of farsightedness of the policy makers is now starting to mess with Le Corbusier’s plans and designs. The traffic police seem to be working hard to handle the situation, but with each passing day, they are failing miserably.

For a while now, statistical fact that ‘Chandigarh has the highest number of cars per capita in the country’ has again caught public attention. However, some ambitious proposals and projects of the administration have been facing hurdles and the situation is going from bad to worse. The metro rail project, which could potentially have solve the tricity’s traffic problem for a long time, is in jeopardy and the Tribune flyover project is yet to see the light of the day.

The authorities, instead of looking for practical solutions, try to shift the onus on the residents. While carpooling is something that should be encouraged and adopted, cycling 365 days a year is not feasible, keeping in mind the summer and monsoon season the city witnesses. Hence, using bicycles is possible for around six months a year. A fair degree of work has been done on the cycle tracks, however, the reality is that most of them are not fit for use, especially after dark. Not just this, nothing is being done to change attitude of motorists towards those using bicycles.

The authorities need to work on improving the public transportation system, in terms of quantity as well as quality. For example, not only does the number of CTU buses need to increase, other modes, especially auto-rickshaws need to be made safer. Even if the Administration wishes to experiment with a tram or monorail, the same should be done at the earliest. Lack of intent is hurting the city more than ever before. The traffic police’s idea of making some roads one-way, especially during rush hour, is not a solution, but a punishment of sorts for owning vehicles.

Gone are the days when Chandigarh was a retiree’s paradise. Today, they struggle to drive on city roads and even more to find parking space. It won’t be long before metro cities will compare Chandigarh’s traffic to their own and the city will lose its charm. Roads will keep leading to the same beautiful locations, but the time taken to reach there will rob the charm of the visit. If a slew of measures are not implemented soon, mentioning Chandigarh and words like ‘peaceful’, ‘calm’, ‘serene’, ‘slow’ and ‘relaxed’ in the same sentence will be a thing of the past.