That’s Not Smart! Having A Mega Circle Taking More Road Space

That’s Not Smart! Having A Mega Circle Taking More Road Space

Mangaluru: On the outset I would like to advise the engineer/engineers or the planning committee team behind the construction of the mega circle near Mallikkata/Kadri to attend the 2-day workshop ‘Karnataka Smart City Project-Action Plan for Pan City solutions” now going on at Hotel Ocean Pearl, so that they learn more about how to construct a road/footpath/circles etc, so that they won’t create yet another blunder in constructing huge circle which take lots of road space-like this one near Mallikatta. Ask any auto-rickshaw drivers, shop owners, motorists, citizens- they will all say its dumb to have such a large circle, which is definitely not needed.

Take a shoddily engineered road and add to it a dollop of reckless motorists and a drizzle of pedestrians with no sense of self-preservation – and you have a recipe for disaster. With few thousands of new registrations of vehicles every day, traffic is going to be a titanic problem in this Coastal City- and added to that what really makes a congestion more worse is due to the large unscientific circles/rotaries at various junctions. Due to poor planning while the new roads are constructed, there are cases where you can find mega circles at unwanted places, and on the other hand there are no circles at all, where they are really needed. Not a “Smart” move for a “Smart City” like Mangaluru?

If one dissects and analyzes the humongous traffic woes of the city, what stares back is the extremely poor engineering and design of roads – a ready-made recipe for frequent traffic gridlocks, made worse by reckless driving and little regard for rules. The other big culprit behind frequent traffic bottleneck is the tendency of Mangaluru’s roads to suddenly narrow in. Road engineering actually branches out of civil engineering and involves planning, design, construction, and maintenance of all things that ensure smooth flow of traffic and safety of motorists as well as pedestrians.

This large circle at the Mallikatte junction, surely create lots of obstructions for vehicular movement from three directions. This is an example of yet another absence of proper road engineering. While the city’s vehicle population is increasing at this maddening pace, and when there is no scope for road growth with the city’s road density restricted to certain size, and now with these large circles, the traffic situation will still get worse. In this scenario, the perennial problems posed by poor road engineering (which end up with roads being designed with bottlenecks) and lack of motoring skills make a deadly combination for a city that seems to be facing “certain death”. This is the main cause of traffic congestion, causing a chain reaction of gridlocks affecting adjoining areas too – a gridlock made worse by motorists blatantly flouting traffic rules.

And the bad part of this Mallikatta Circle is that most of the traffic, especially the private buses coming from Bendore side-towards Mallikatta and proceeding towards Kadri market don’t even come around the circle, instead make an easy and quick turn in order to avoid the circle. That’s a safety hazard, because motorists coming from Kadri side and going towards Malikatta may end up in an accident when these bus drivers skip making a turn around the circle. First of all our Kudla roads are narrow, and with these mega circles, they are making it worse, resulting in traffic congestion and accidents.

Even before this Mallikatta Circle is completely finished, already there has been lots of confusion faced by motorists trying to make a turn around this complicated mega Circle. Absolutely not a “Smart” plan when the City is gearing up to be a “Smart City?”.

Also Read Related Articles Below:

• Not Smart! Constructing Mega Circles at Unwanted Junctions
• That’s Not Smart! MCC Neglecting a Open Drain in Front of Hospital
• That’s Not Smart! MCC ignoring Open Drainage causing Diseases
• Kudla Needs ‘Smart Officials’ to make M’luru a ‘Smart City’?
• Not Smart! MCC ignoring Dilapidated Roads with Potholes
• Mangaluru: That’s Not Smart! Constructing New Roads without Footpaths/Drainage
• Mangaluru: That’s Not Smart-Having Bunch of Sinking Manholes in the ‘Would-Be’ Smart City
• Mangaluru: That’s Not Smart- To have Trees Branches Hanging Close to City Prison Wall
• Mangaluru: That’s Not Smart- To have Trees Branches Hanging Close to City Prison Wall
• Mangaluru: That’s Not Smart-Jaywalking on the Road when Footpaths Exist
• Mangaluru: MCC Crew Not ‘Smart’ for ‘Smart City’ – Fix Bad Roads First, Then Concretize other Roads!
• Mangaluru: ‘We need ‘Smart Officials’ of  ‘Smart City’ to Stop Contract Labour Practice’ – MMSU