Not Smart! Wasting Tax Payers Money on Mallikatte Circle & Bus Shelter near City Hospital?

Not Smart! Wasting Tax Payers Money on Mallikatte Circle & Bus Shelter near City Hospital?

Mangaluru: I have said it earlier, and will say it again that “One thing for sure that Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) and its officials know how to spend taxpayers money on projects that don’t serve the purpose of the citizens, motorists or commuters”. On the outset the mega Circle constructed near Mallikatte, on Kadri Road-Mangaluru is one of the biggest blunder done by the Engineer/contractor, which takes lots of road space and which has been creating confusion for motorist, due to intersection of four roads. Ask any auto-rickshaw drivers, shop owners, motorists, citizens- they will all say its dumb to have such a large circle, which was 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?

Okay the latest progress on this Mega Mallikkatte Circle is that MCC is planning to construct a fountain in the middle of this Circle, which is learnt is funded by a builder from that locality. And when the restructure of this Circle was going on, a bunch of CCTV’s installed by the Mangaluru Traffic Police, have been now removed- and the motorists, especially private buses are using the benefit by not taking a U-turn around the circle, instead make a turn skipping the circle (See pics in the report- a PTC private bus breaking the traffic rule). The traffic police department had spent close to a crore, on these CCTV’s to crack down on motorists disobeying traffic rules- and now that these CCTVs have been removed-who knows where they have been dumped? Oh well, tax payers money gone down the drain.

Another safety hazard once the fountain is done- it would be a blind spot for traffic coming from opposite direction. According to a fruit stall employee, everyday there are a few narrowly missed accidents because of this mega circle, and when the fountain is constructed, you are talking about sure accidents? For large buses like the KSRTC green colored city buses, the drivers are having a tough time to make a turn around this circle, due to bad planning and other obstructions. Ask any residents or a auto-rickshaw drivers or other motorists, they all simply laugh or pass silly comments on the existence of this “Eighth Wonder of the World?”

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 a easy and quick turn in order to avoid the circle. That’s an safety hazard, because motorists coming from Kadri side and going towards Mallikkatta may end up in a 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 more worse, resulting in traffic congestion and accidents.

This large circle at the Mallikatte junction, has already lots of obstructions for vehicular movement from 3-4 directions, and everyone is coping with it. 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.

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.

BUS SHELTER NEAR TO CITY HOSPITAL-KADRI ROAD! DO WE REALLY NEED ONE?

If you go around the City, you’ll notice that City ‘Bus Shelters’ are turning out to Be ‘Homeless Shelters’ for beggars/homeless and ‘Dog Kennels’ for stray dogs? Have you noticed that how many commuters really use the bus shelters-the one reason would be that buses don’t stop in front of the bus shelters/bus stops, instead stop wherever the bus drivers want according to their whims and fancies.But looking at the present scenario, it seems like the transport authority/public transport association and Mangaluru City Corporation have a mission…’It’s either more or less, but never adequate.’ So, when people who commute daily by city or service buses complain of the hazards and hassles involved in boarding a bus, both the authorities seem to be aggravating the commuter’s problem.

Bus stops across the City are in a shambles. In many places, there are no bus shelters at all, and at some spots there are more than one bus shelter- and there are other spots where makeshift stops have added to the misery of the travelling public. An over enthusiastic MCC and other organizations/associations have gone ahead with random construction of bus shelters, leaving the commuters more confused at some places and have completely ignored certain places. Take this classic example of lack of planning by these authorities. Taking a ride across the city and little further in the outskirts of the city, you’ll notice that there are two or three bus-shelters with a scanty population using it for travelling towards their required destinations, and in other places where many commuters really need a bus shelter, there is none. Thousands of commuters have to wait along the bus stops or most of the times on the road itself. This gets worse when it rains.

There is absolutely no planning or policy when it comes to the number of bus shelters to be built at a particular point as some important bus stops. In fact, there are no shelters at all in most of the bus stops in the newly added wards. There cannot be a worse hardship, a commuter can face while waiting for a bus for a long time. It’s very confusing for the people, especially visitors who wait for the bus where there are more bus shelters. They do not know where the bus stops. In such cases, they might also miss the bus and not reach their work place or destination in time. Chances are that when the people are waiting for the bus in a bus shelter, the bus might stop ahead in the next shelter. Also, if the same route bus numbers are plying at a particular time, the buses won’t even stop, unless there are commuters alighting in that destination. There is no proper display of route numbers on the bus shelters either. Seems like there is a lot of disarray in the construction of more than one shelter at a particular stop between the planners.

Now regarding the Bus Shelter near to City Hospital-Kadri Road, it is not planned well. Bus Shelter is okay, but why even construct a garden/park near to it, which is really a obstruction for the buses to approach closer to the bus shelter. With the mini park that is being constructed, chances are that the bus drivers will stop the buses on the road, like they are doing now right in front of City Hospital. Are our Engineers/MCC officials hooked on stupidity to come up with the idea of constructing a park next to a bus shelter, which will create inconvenience/obstruction for buses approaching the bus shelter. If you have a look at the present plan, you will have your last laugh? Even the auto-rickshaw drivers are making mockery of the proposed bus shelter.

Let’s wait and see how many commuters will use this New Bus Shelter once completed or it would be yet another place for homeless/beggars and stray dogs to spend their day/night? Let’s also see how long the new garden/park will last, like the other parks in the city which have been neglected. Absolutely not a “Smart” plan when the City is gearing up to be a “Smart City?”.

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