Kochi: Residents of St Benedict Road at Ernakulam North are on a warpath against the rerouting of private buses from Banerjee Road through it from Kacherippady to Ernakulam Town Hall area. They say that with the commissioning of Kochi Metro, Banerjee Road has been widened and there is enough space for private buses to ply to and fro and there is no need to reroute buses through the narrow St Benedict Road which also has a lot of potholes.
“City buses plying through St Benedict Road residential areas contribute to increase in atmospheric and noise pollution adding to miseries to nearly 200 families on the roads and also to pedestrians. This has been the practice for last one-and-a-half decades. We have been silently bearing this considering the authorities stand that Banerjee Road is narrow and hence buses have to be rerouted to avoid traffic congestion. But they promised that once Kochi Metro Rail is commissioned, Banerjee Road too will be widened and then this will be stopped. But that has not happened,” said C. I. Mathew, a resident of St Benedict Road.
He said that a total of 1,468 private bus trips are conducted through the road every day. “Private bus owners together spend Rs 65 lakh per year on fuel for running the additional distance of 600 meters per trip on the road which is a national wastage without any relief of any kind to the traffic problems in the city,” said Mathew.
He said that the St Benedict Road is without any footpath and even drainage is not covered in several parts. “It is so narrow that only a bus can pass through it at a time and has enough number of potholes. For the construction of a culvert on the road, the buses did not ply through it for two months recently. Then the whole traffic was handled by Banerjee road after widening without major traffic blocks. But now the Regional Transport Authority has again diverted the buses through St Benedict Road regularly which in fact can be done only in emergencies,” said Mathew, adding the RTA has not positively responded to their pleas to stop it.
