Small City-Big Circles! Mega Circles in City to be Sliced, including Mallikatte Circle

By
Alfie Dsouza, Team Mangalorean.
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Small City-Big Circles! Mega Circles in City to be Sliced, including Mallikatte Circle

Mangaluru: Even long before former MLA Vijayakumar Shetty woke up and went around the city, along with a bevy of reporters whining about Mangaluru City Corporation spending and wasting taxpayers hard earned money on unwanted mega circles, and also on the stalled clock tower, Team Mangalorean had already highlighted on all these civic issues way back-just browse on some of these earlier links on the particular issues- “http://www.mangalorean.com/not-smart-constructing-water-fountain-circle-mallikatta-truly-blind-spot-structure/ “; “http://www.mangalorean.com/not-smart-wasting-tax-payers-money-on-mallikatte-circle-bus-shelter-near-city-hospital/“; http://www.mangalorean.com/thats-not-smart-mega-circle-taking-road-space/; and many others.

On Tuesday, 5 February, former MLA Vijayakumar Shetty along with a bunch of journos went around the city, and did a reality check on a few mega circles which are eating the space of the road, thereby creating inconveniences for motorists and pedestrians. Their inspection of circles started from Lady Hill Circle, followed by Kadri-Mallikatte Circle, Nandigudda Circle, Marnamikatte Circle, Forum Fiza Mall-Pandeshwar Circle, A B Shetty Circle, Hamilton Circle (Near State Bank), etc. But where was our MLA when all these Circles were getting a extreme make-over or reconstruction was done? What is point in doing reality check on these Circles after they have been completed, and now urging the concerned authorities to cut down the size? NOT SMART at all!

Kudla’s most Unscientific Mega Circle at Mallikatte-Kadri

MLA Shetty complaining about the Lady Hill circle says that huge traffic coming on that route, including vehicles coming from Mumbai and Udupi, such a large circle will create inconvenience during peak hours. Also his comments on Mallikatte, where he said “Just because there is a sponsor to construct a Mega Circle, you don’t approve such huge circle, without taking into consideration the inconvenience it causes to motorists and residents. This is one of the biggest circle in the City and simply doesn’t suit the place. In spite of objections from the Police Commissioner, police department and also from bus associations, as it is difficult for them to take a turn around the circle, still MCC went ahead and has created a big blunder, thereby wasting large sum of money”.

Nandigudda Circle

It is learnt that one resident of the Kadri area Ms Rosy Maria D’silva speaking to media had said, “Even though the residents had raised objection when the circle was getting constructed, however, MCC went ahead with the project, just because there was a builder to sponsor the project. Now we are facing lot of problems, we can’t even cross the road as the circle is too huge, and one of these there will be a fatality- and then only the officials will realize their blunder”. Well said by Ms D’silva, she indeed has a point, which our Smart Officials of the Smart City lack very much. Bah humbug!

Marnamikatta Circle

Shetty went on to praise about the small circles at Bunts Hostel, Bendore near St Agnes and couple other places, which he said were ideal for a city like Mangaluru. He even complimented the concerned authorities for cutting down the size of Nanthoor Circle and KPT Circle, which now allows the smooth flow of traffic. He even gave examples of couple of mega circles in Bengaluru, namely Hudson Circle and St John’s Circle, being removed, which has now helped ease traffic. So why not MCC and our police traffic dept follow in the footsteps of Bengaluru, and rectify the issue which is haunting and creating inconveniences to the public here.

Mega Circle near Forum Fiza Mall-Pandeshwar

Slamming on the concerned people about the upcoming clock tower circle in the busiest part of the city, which was once demolished by the then DC Bharat Lal Meena, since it was obstructing traffic and creating traffic jam- and now once again a new clock tower is coming up, has become a prestige issue of the citizens, Shetty said it was waste of Rs 91 lakhs already spend on this project, which is now stopped when Smart City Limited objected to the construction. Sheer waste of tax payers money. Along with this clock tower, all other mega circles in the city are a waste of public money and precious space, and also they cause inconveniences to the citizens”. Is any body listening, what our former MLA has to say?

A B Shetty Circle near RTO

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 a titanic problem in this Coastal City- and added to that what really makes 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?

Hamilton Circle near State Bank

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, is already creating 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 is getting 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.

Tax payers hard earned money of Rs 91 lakhs plus spent on this ‘Not Needed’ Clock Tower

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 many a times 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 Mallikatta 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 more worse, resulting in traffic congestion and accidents.

Lady Hill Circle

And regarding the Clock Tower, what a waste of money, when people have mobiles to check the time, who’ll ever look up at the clock tower for the time. By the way, even beggars have mobile phones these days, and they too don’t need this clock tower to find out what time it is. What our former “Simha” mayor Kavitha Sanil has to say about this, where this clock tower is her Dream Project!

Summarizing within a sentence, all I can say is that these are absolutely not “Smart” plans when the City is rated as a “Smart City?” What a joke!

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