Parking to be streamlined for smooth traffic in city

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, Mar 14, 2016:  The Mangaluru City Traffic Police are expecting betterment in vehicular movement in the city in a couple of weeks as they have started taking steps such as regulating vehicle parking and closing openings in road medians.

A team of police personnel under Assistant Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Uday M. Nayak is taking up a survey to identify traffic bottlenecks and parking locations, after which steps would be put in place to regulate traffic, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic and Crime) Sanjeev M. Patil has said.

Vehicle parking has become chaotic across the city as parked vehicles are encroaching road space as well as what is meant for pedestrians. “We will not hesitate to initiate steps to curb haphazard parking of vehicles,” he said.

Meanwhile, there are quite a few openings in road medians where vehicles taking right and ‘U’ turns cause traffic snarls. Some of them are likely to be closed, at least during the peak hours, to prevent traffic logjams,  Patil said. The officer said that utility agencies, including the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the Public Works Department and the Mangaluru City Corporation, would be told to indicate the date of completion of a particular road infrastructure project they take up.

When such a date is indicated at the project site, people would able to question those agencies if there was any delay, DCP Patil said. Responding to the NHAI’s “casual” approach in refurbishing the Netravathi old bridge, the officer said he would take up the matter with the authority.

DCP Patil said that the city corporation was likely to complete the concreting work on the stretch of KMC Mercara Trunk Road between Kadri Mallikatte and Nanthoor Junction within a month.

Commissioner of Police M. Chandra Sekhar during a meeting of various stakeholders last month had specifically asked the utility agencies to adhere to the timeline and not to inconvenience the general public, particularly pedestrians, DCp Patil said. The traffic police were following up issues raised in the meeting with the agencies, he added.